Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. Speaker: I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act, 1967, that the Queen has signified Her Royal Assent to the following Acts and Measure:

1. Income and Corporation Taxes (No. 2) Act, 1970.
2. Family Income Supplements Act, 1970.
3. Contingencies Fund Act, 1970.
4. Town and Country Planning Regulations (London) (Indemnity) Act, 1970.
5. Expiring Laws Continuance Act, 1970.
6. Aberdeen Corporation Order Confirmation Act, 1970.
7. Glasgow Corporation (Works &amp;c) Order Confirmation Act, 1970.
8. Stirling County Council Order Confirmation Act, 1970.
9. Dundee Corporation Order Confirmation Act, 1970.
10. Edinburgh Corporation Order Confirmation Act, 1970.
11. Nottinghamshire County Council Act, 1970.
12. Preston Corporation Act, 1970.
13. Lindsey County Council Act, 1970.
14. Northampton Corporation Act, 1970.
15. Pembrokeshire Water Board Act, 1970.
16. Port of Tyne Act, 1970.
17. Barry Corporation Act, 1970.
18. Gateshead Corporation Act, 1970.
19. City of London (Various Powers) Act, 1970.
20. Gloucester Corporation Act, 1970.

21. West End Baptist Church, Hammersmith Act, 1970.
22. East Suffolk County Council Act, 1970.
23. Liverpool Corporation Act, 1970.
24. Southend-on-Sea Corporation Act, 1970.
25. British Railways Act, 1970.
26. Greater London Council (General Powers) Act, 1970.
27. Monmouthshire County Council Act, 1970.
28. Port of London Act, 1970.
29. Western Valleys (Monmouthshire) Sewerage Board Act, 1970.
30. Bootle Corporation Act, 1970.
31. Bridge Street Baptist Church, Banbury Act, 1970.
32. Grimsby Corporation Act, 1970.
33. Oxfordshire County Council Act, 1970.
34. Reading Corporation Act, 1970.
35. Wiltshire County Council Act, 1970.

Church Commissioners Measure, 1970.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

Polytechnics (Students)

Mr. Grylls: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the average maximum number of students, full-time and Dart-time, that she visualises in the 30 polytechnics by 1980.

The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): The number of higher education institutions we shall need in 1980 and their student numbers will depend on future Government decisions about the development of higher education.

Mr. Grylls: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Is she aware that the speech of the Under-Secretary of State at Leicester on 2nd December was a source of great comfort and encouragement to all concerned with polytechnics,


but that there are many people in the local education authorities who are very concerned to know student numbers for planning. Could my right hon. Friend give some indication as soon as possible so that they can prepare their plans well ahead? Could consideration be given to additional polytechnics outside London, which already has three universities and eight polytechnics, and to concentrating further provision in the provinces?

Mr. Speaker: Long questions mean fewer questions.

Mrs. Thatcher: Perhaps it might help my hon. Friend to know that at the moment polytechnic buildings costing some £12 million are now under construction and a further £7·5 million worth should start before April, 1972. This should give a good deal of extra provision.

Mr. Alan Williams: But is it not about time the right hon. Lady stopped dithering on the whole question of future student numbers and revealed the criteria that she is using within her Department for the next 10 years? Or is she afraid to reveal her thinking on this matter until the botch-up on comprehensive education has been forgotten?

Mrs. Thatcher: If the hon. Gentleman has done his homework, as I am sure he has, he will know that decisions on university grant places are not expected until next year, because the figures will not be in until then.

Adult Education (Russell Report)

Mr. Grylls: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when she expects to receive the Russell Report on Adult Education.

The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. William van Straubenzee): March, 1972.

Higher Education (Courses)

Mr. Spearing: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the total income last year to local authorities in England and Wales from fees charged in further education establishments for vocational and non-vocational courses, respectively; and what is the estimated percentage increase in charges for non-vocational courses

necessary to achieve the savings of £5 million a year envisaged in the statement, "New Policies for Public Spending".

Mr. van Straubenzee: Separate figures are not available. Total fee income was about £15 million. Local authorities decide which fees shall be increased.

Mr. Spearing: In view of that reply, would not the hon. Gentleman agree that it is unusual that a Government should state that their policies are fully considered when it is clear that they are not aware of the effects of this policy statement?

Mr. van Straubenzee: No, Sir. These are essentially, in detail, matters for decision by local education authorities. Of course, the background to the request by the Government was that gross expenditure in this field is running at about £250 million.

Youth Service

Mr. Charles Morrison: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will now make a statement on the future of the Youth Service.

Mrs. Thatcher: I am not yet ready to make a statement.

Mr. Morrison: I appreciate that my right hon. Friend wants plenty of time to consider her policy on this subject, but is she aware that there is a good deal of uncertainty in the youth service, particularly following the Youth Service Development Council Report last year? Could she give reassurances as soon as conceivably possible?

Mrs. Thatcher: I am happy to give those assurances.

Miss Lestor: As the report has been in her hands since she first went to the Department, and as it has been fully discussed in the country by people involved with the Youth Service, may I ask the right hon. Lady whether she realises—because the report contains a large number of recommendations, some of which are welcome by those in the youth sphere—the need for the Government to act urgently in this matter? Will she do her best to expedite a decision?

Mrs. Thatcher: I am certainly aware of that. I would only point out that the report has been in my hands for rather


less time than it was in the hon. Lady's hands.

Children (Home-School Transport Supervision)

Mr. Charles Morrison: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will issue a circular requesting local education authorities to employ supervisors on single-manned public service buses carrying five- to seven-year-old children to school.

Mrs. Thatcher: Local education authorities already have powers to employ such supervisors if they consider it advisable to do so.

Mr. Morrison: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Is she aware that a new, rather worrying, factor has entered into the transport of children on public service buses; namely, the swift introduction of single-manned buses on which there is nobody to look after these small children? Is she able to give advice to parents and local education authorities on this subject?

Mrs. Thatcher: I am aware of this fact because of the correspondence I have had from my hon. Friend. I think it right to expect parents to take the prime responsibility for their children on the journey between home and school.

School Meals

Mr. David Clark: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action she proposes to take in the light of complaints addressed to her regarding the unreasonable action of local education authorities over the use of school premises by children eating pre-packed sandwiches for their lunches.

Mr. Carter: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what action she proposes to take in the light of complaints addressed to her regarding the unreasonable action of local authorities which levy a charge on those children who eat sandwiches during the lunch period.

Mrs. Thatcher: A few authorities make a small charge for the use of facilities by those who bring sandwiches to school. I have had very few complaints about this, but I will consider with local

authority associations whether advice can usefully be given on this matter.

Mr. Clark: Is the Minister aware that this problem will grow in future and that, for example, the N.U.T. has estimated that 500,000 fewer children will be taking school meals as a result of her decision to increase prices? Will she therefore consider this whole matter with more urgency?

Mrs. Thatcher: This matter will be referred to the Joint Working Party on School Meals.

Mr. Carter: Is the right hon. Lady aware that the local education authority in Birmingham is proposing to introduce a charge of 1s. for each child who takes sandwiches to school? Will she bear in mind the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. David Clark) and accept that this problem will be accentuated after April, when more children will not be able to have a hot meal at school because of the increases which have been imposed by the Government?

Mrs. Thatcher: I have pointed out that the matter will be referred to the Joint Working Party on School Meals. I do not think there is anything I can usefully add to that.

Mr. Edward Short: Would the right hon. Lady express an opinion on the legality of this charge? Is it not a fact that local authorities have no authority whatever to levy such a charge?

Mrs. Thatcher: I am advised that the charge is not illegal.

Mr. Carter: In view of the highly unsatisfactory nature of the reply of the Secretary of State for Education and Science to my Question on charges imposed on children for eating sandwiches during lunch periods in schools, I intend to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. Speaker: That is what one would call a late development.

Teaching Council

Mr. Hardy: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the present position in regard to the proposed Teachers' Council.

Mrs. Thatcher: I am still awaiting the views of some of the associations which have been consulted on the Report of the Working Party on a Teaching Council for England and Wales.

Mr. Hardy: Will the Minister endeavour to push on with all speed to implement this desirable development? Does she agree that a Teaching Council could serve very worth-while purposes, particularly in training standards, professional co-operation and the orientation of research, which makes this a highly desirable proposal?

Mrs. Thatcher: I appreciate the feeling that exists on this matter, and I will take decisions as soon as I have received the full representations.

Open University

Mr. Hardy: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is her estimate of the expected maximum number of students to be accepted by the Open University in each of the next five years.

Mr. van Straubenzee: Grant for 1971–73 has been assessed on an intake of students for the first year of 25,000 and a total number of undergraduate students in 1973 in the range 36,000 to 42,000. Annual intakes for the years following 1971 remain to be determined.

Mr. Hardy: May we be assured that the Open University will be allowed to make unimpeded progress? May we have an assurance that it will not be used as a cheap form of education for those leaving school in the normal way?

Mr. van Straubenzee: Government decisions have been announced and will be adhered to. It is true that at the Government's request the Open University is looking into the possibility of the 18-year-olds, and I think the hon. Gentleman would be wise to withhold his criticism until he has received advice from the Open University on that aspect.

Mr. Alan Williams: Has the hon. Gentleman seen a report—I am sure he has—showing that inflation is currently adding about £400,000 a year to the costs of the Open University? What action does he propose to take to protect this and other universities from the failure of the Prime Minister to honour his pledge to curb inflation at a stroke?

Mr. van Straubenzee: I have no additional announcement to make on this subject today, except to point out that the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question accentuates the hideous state of the legacy which we inherited.

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what plans she has for increasing the educational facilities of the Open University.

Mr. van Straubenzee: None, Sir.

Mr. Hamilton: Does the Under-Secretary recognise that if the authorities of this university yield to the pressures being exerted on them by the Government to admit 18-year-olds who cannot obtain a place in an ordinary university even though qualified, the original intention of this imaginative project will be frustrated, and this will be deeply resented by large sections of the education community?

Mr. van Straubenzee: That is not a viewpoint universally accepted by those connected with the university. The hon. Gentleman would be well advised to await the outcome of the advice given to the Government by that university.

Mr. Edward Short: On what does the Under-Secretary of State base that reply? Has the Open University said that it wishes to take in 18-year-olds?

Mr. van Straubenzee: The Open University is considering this, among other matters, at the direct request of the Government.

Mr. Edward Short: At the Government's direction?

Mr. van Straubenzee: At the Government's request. I am simply respectfully advising the right hon. Gentleman and others not to jump to conclusions.

Museums and Galleries

Mr. St. John-Stevas: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she will make a further statement of Government policy on admission charges to museums and galleries.

Mr. Rose: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when she expects to be able to announce the


results of her consultation concerning the detailed arrangements for admission charges and exemptions in respect of national museums and galleries.

Mr. Strauss: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science when she proposes to implement her policy of charging entrance fees to museums and galleries.

Mr. van Straubenzee: My noble Friend the Paymaster-General has not yet completed his negotiations with the institutions concerned and is, therefore, not in a position to make an announcement about the arrangements.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: While I fully support a policy of admission charges—[HON. MEMBERS: "Shame!"]—may I ask my hon. Friend to make it clear that the system will be flexible and will allow for free days and special tickets to students, old-age pensioners and others, and that it is the intention of the Government to increase the money available to galleries so that they may reorganise and expand their collections?

Mr. van Straubenzee: Those points were fully covered by my noble Friend in the debate in another place yesterday. I am sure that my hon. Friend will have noticed that some of the preliminary advice which has been received is actually against free days; but the matter has still to be determined.

Mr. Rose: While understanding the philosophy of the Conservative Party that the finer things of life should be denied to those who cannot afford them, may I ask the hon. Gentleman to nevertheless make special allowances for children, students and others pursuing courses who need to visit galleries?

Mr. van Straubenzee: Those are all matters which have yet to be determined. Perhaps I might point out that it is strange to find in the National Portrait Gallery this month an exhibition of Pepys drawings for which that gallery is charging a special fee of 5s.

Mr. Strauss: As it is a legislative requirement that the British Museum should always be free and its contents freely available to the public and as a clause to this effect was incorporated in the Act of 1753, may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether the Government's pro-

posals envisage the introduction of amending legislation? If so, will he bear in mind that when in 1923 the Government tried to introduce such proposals, the weight of enlightened opinion against them among those who would not countenance any restriction on art lovers among the poorer sections of the community was such that Baldwin, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time, wisely withdrew the offending proposals?

Mr. van Straubenzee: The right hon. Gentleman may have heard—if not, I am certain that he will have read—that in yesterday's debate in another place the Chairman of the British Museum Trustees made it clear that he had not yet received firm legal opinion on the matter. My only comment on the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, as a disinterested observer of yesterday's debate, is that my noble Friend wiped the floor with his opponents.

Dame Irene Ward: After the negotiations are concluded between my noble Friend and the bodies involved and before a final decision is taken by the Government, will arrangements be made for this House to discuss the outcome of those negotiations, as we have a great idea of what we want and should have a right sometimes to say what we want?

Mr. van Straubenzee: My hon. Friend will recognise that the decision has been made and will be adhered to. What we are now discussing is its implementation. I am sure that those who arrange business, among whom I am not included, will have heard what my hon. Friend said.

Mr. Faulds: Will the Government not have the sense and sensibility to reconsider this whole sorry matter? Although we are sorry to find that one honoured and cultured Gentleman on the other side of the House whom we had expected to support us has not done so, will the Under-Secretary accept the representations of those who know about this matter, including such eminent authorities as Lord Clark? Finally, although he and I both attended parts of the debate in the other place yesterday, will he take it that, in my view, a reading of the debate by all who take an impartial view of the matter will be that the Government suffered a severe moral defeat in the other place?

Mr. van Straubenzee: I cannot understand why a Velasquez in one place should be more appreciated than a Velasquez in another, the second one being under the jurisdiction of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Mr. Rose: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the answer, I beg to give notice that I shall seek an early opportunity to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Grants)

Mr. St. John-Stevas: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she will make a statement of Government policy on grants to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Mrs. Thatcher: Grants to the Royal Opera House are made by the Arts Council. The council decides on the allocation of its grants and on subsidies to individual companies.

Mr. St. John-Stevas: If my right hon. Friend can hear me through the baying of the Philistines opposite, may I ask her whether she will consider the very necessary reform of making quinquennial grants, so that standards of production planning could be raised and the standards of this important national asset be raised even higher?

Mrs. Thatcher: I have not so far considered that, but I shall put the point to my noble Friend the Paymaster-General.

Mr. Faulds: What are the Governments reactions to the proposition mooted in the latest report of the Royal Opera House that once the fruit and vegetables have been removed elsewhere, a second smaller building should be provided in which smaller-scale productions could be put on ready for regional tours? Would not this largely offset the present Metropolitan monopoly of really first-class opera productions?

Mrs. Thatcher: Although I am a great opera fan, we shall have to look carefully at that project in the light of the resources available. In the meantime, the annual grant to the Royal Opera Company this year is £1,390,000, which is considerably up on 1965–66.

Mr. Maude: If my right hon. Friend is thinking of recommending a change

from annual to quinquennial grants, will she bear in mind that the Royal Opera House is not the only recipient which would benefit, and that there are other places, for example, in Stratford-on-Avon, which could do with it, too?

Mrs. Thatcher: I shall draw my hon. Friend's remarks to the attention of my noble Friend.

Mrs. Renée Short: As the Question is about opera, will the right hon. Lady bear in mind that, while the Royal Opera House does a great deal to raise the standard of opera in this country, we have other opera companies in the British Isles which are in a less favourable position than the Royal Opera Company and need additional help from the Arts Council? I have in mind especially the Welsh National Opera Company, which have done superb work not only in Wales but in the rest of the country. Such companies need greater help from the Arts Council, and I ask the right hon. Lady to use her good offices with the Arts Council to that end.

Mrs. Thatcher: There are considerable calls on the Arts Council's grants. There is a Question about the grant later on the Order Paper.

Religious Instruction

Mr. Normanton: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what circulars she plans to issue on the subject of religious instruction and observance in schools.

Mrs. Thatcher: None, Sir.

Mr. Normanton: I note my right hon. Friend's reply, but it will bring considerable anxiety and continuing distress to a large number of parents and to many religious institutions. Will she reconsider her decision? Will she consider also whether there is some means of resisting the continued erosion of religious faith as well as teaching in many of our schools?

Mrs. Thatcher: It is because of the erosion that I wish to retain the existing religious provisions in the Education Act, 1944. I think that my hon. Friend's objectives and mine are the same, and I hope that he will consider my viewpoint.

Mr. Kaufman: On the question of religious instruction, has the Secretary of State received the letter which I sent to her regarding a request for a three-room extension to St. Kentigern's School in my constituency? Will she undertake to agree that that extension should be built?

Mrs. Thatcher: That does not arise from the Question, and I confess that I did not have the specific letter in mind when I formulated my reply.

School Building Programme

Mr. Lane: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many projects for the improvement or replacement of primary schools will be included in the building programme for 1970–71, 1971–72 and 1972–73 respectively.

Mrs. Thatcher: 124, 167 and 436 respectively in England and Wales.

Mr. Lane: Projecting those encouraging figures further forward, will my right hon. Friend confirm that she hopes to get rid of the last of the Victorian primary schools some time in the mid-1970s?

Mrs. Thatcher: I confirm that it is my aim to replace the worst of the schools built in the last century, for which there is a continuing need, over the five years of which the first is the programme year 1972–73.

Mr. Loughlin: How can the right hon. Lady be so confident of completing that programme when she has admitted to me in correspondence that she does not even know the requirements for replacement of primary schools in my constituency? How can she determine what a programme is likely to be until she first acquires knowledge of the requirements?

Mrs. Thatcher: The hon. Gentleman has a Question later on the Order Paper, and he will receive an answer then.

Mr. Wilkinson: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what has been the cost to her Department of building new primary schools in Bradford in each of the financial years 1967–68, 1968–69, and 1969–70; and how much her Department plans to spend on this in

each year from 1970–71 to 1972–73, inclusive.

Mr. van Straubenzee: As the answer contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate the information in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Wilkinson: In view of the not very informative nature of my hon. Friend's reply, may I remind him that 80 or 90 of the 115 primary schools in Bradford were built before 1903? Will he confirm his right hon. Friend's promise that by 1977 all these Victorian buildings will be replaced?

Mr. van Straubenzee: I think that my hon. Friend will find that this is a highly informative answer, as are all answers given by Ministers of this Government.

Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that whatever figures may appear in the OFFICIAL REPORT for the City of Bradford, the figures for Derbyshire are appalling? The fact is that they have been sliced from £450,000 to £150,000 in two years. Will he therefore meet a deputation from the Tory-controlled education committee of Derbyshire, whose chairman, incidentally, has condemned this sum as being very paltry indeed?

Mr. van Straubenzee: There is, as the hon. Gentleman well knows, a Question in his name later in the Order Paper with which, out of courtesy to him, I must deal at that time.

Following is the information:


PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN BRADFORD


Year
Gross cost of building work



£


Started in 1967–68
730,000


Started in 1968–69
153,000


Started in 1969–70
308,000


Authorised starts for 1970–71
130,000


Authorised starts for 1971–72
330,000


Design List for 1971–72 which will form the basis of the starts list for 1972–73
221,000

Mr. Loughlin: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how she proposes to achieve a balance in her replacement programme of primary schools, in view of her lack of knowledge of the requirements in education authority areas; and if she will make a statement.

Mrs. Thatcher: Local education authorities have provided lists of primary schools built before 1903 for which there


is a continuing need and which are below standard. I have now asked authorities which schools they regard as most urgent for replacement or improvement.

Mr. Loughlin: The right hon. Lady will be aware that I asked her for information in connection with the date of building schools in my constituency. She said categorically that this was not information that the Department collated. If she wants to be serious in projecting a programme for the replacement of schools, it is essential that she has such knowledge. Will she initiate a study with a view to obtaining the knowledge?

Mrs. Thatcher: The hon. Gentleman's previous question to me asked the year in which specific schools were built. I do not have that information in that form. I have a list of schools built before 1903. It is on the basis of that list that I am selecting projects, with the help of the local authorities, for the biggest primary schools improvement programme on record.

Mr. Marks: Does the right hon. Lady recognise that many secondary schools are in the same category, and will she take the same action about them?

Mrs. Thatcher: I have given priority for improvements to the primary schools. Secondary schools will have a very large building programme with the raising of the school-leaving age.

Mr. Short: The right hon. Lady will be aware that there is a considerable discrepancy between the figures that she has given for pre-1903 schools and the school building survey of 1962? Will she explain how she has arrived at her figures?

Mrs. Thatcher: As far as I am aware, I am operating on the school building survey which was conducted shortly before I came to the Department. There has not been another one since.

Birmingham (Immigrant Children)

Mr. Gurden: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what advice she has given to the Birmingham education authority in the matter of the large increases in the numbers of newly-arrived immigrant children.

Mrs. Thatcher: I have made a further minor works allocation to provide additional school places.

Mr. Gurden: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that news. Will she have a word with her Cabinet colleagues to see how much longer these half-dozen or so industrial areas have to carry the exceptional load of all the dependants, so-called dependants and illegal immigrants continually coming into the country?

Mrs. Thatcher: There are problems where large numbers of children require extra school provision, but I assure my hon. Friend that we are doing all we can to help.

Mr. Bidwell: Will the right hon. Lady assure the House that nothing under existing arrangements or future arrangements under the new Bill about immigration which is to come before Parliament, and nothing which she does herself, will prevent children from joining the bread-winners in this country, notwithstanding the difficulties which that presents to local authorities, education committees and so on? Does not the right hon. Lady deplore the remarks which her hon. Friend has just made, which suggest that the matter of illegal immigration has something to do with the statutory right of children to join their parents here?

Mrs. Thatcher: My duty is to see that education is provided for children who are here, whatsoever their background, and we try to do that.

Miss Lestor: Would it not be helpful if the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) would pay tribute to the teachers in Birmingham and many other areas who have made such tremendous efforts and strides in the education of children from overseas? Second, does the right hon. Lady include in her review of teacher training the question of an increase in facilities for the training of teachers in colleges of education to deal with children from overseas, and an increase in in-service training, too?

Mrs. Thatcher: On the first point, I am sure that my hon. Friend would gladly pay that tribute, and I join him in doing so. On the second point, I hope


that the teacher training inquiry will include that.

Student Unions (Use of Public Funds)

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will seek powers to enable her to investigate the disbursement of public funds by student unions and student representative councils.

Mr. van Straubenzee: The Department is carrying out an inquiry into the financing of student unions in further education and colleges of education. The Committee of Vice-Chancellors is doing the same for universities. My right hon. Friend will decide what action is necessary in the light of these inquiries.

Mr. Wall: Is my hon. Friend aware that certain students unions are allocating funds to pay the fines of some individuals which have been awarded by courts of law, and that other students unions are financing admittedly revolutionary organisations? Is not this a misuse of public funds, and will it come under the terms of reference of the Committee to which he referred in the first part of his answer?

Mr. van Straubenzee: I am aware of the sort of example given by my hon. Friend, and there is no doubt that such examples will be shown up by the inquiries to which I have referred. It will then be for my right hon. Friend to decide what, if any, action is appropriate.

Mr. Willey: Does the Under-Secretary of State remember when he was a member of a Select Committee, when we made a report on student relations? We made nelightened recommendations bearing on this question. Will he take an early opportunity to make a progress report on the implementation of that Select Committee's recommendations?

Mr. van Straubenzee: I have not forgotten those very fruitful times spent under the right hon. Gentleman's chairmanship. He may possibly have missed the fact that my right hon. Friend has already answered a Question in the House indicating her attitude to that report.

Nursery Schools

Mr. Greville Janner: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science

if she will authorise the local authority to provide nursery schools in Leicester within the State school system.

Mrs. Thatcher: I shall be prepared to consider any proposals which satisfy the criteria used for the urban programme.

Mr. Greville Janner: I welcome that answer, but is the right hon. Lady aware of the acute shortage of nursery school places not only in Leicester but in all other cities with large housing estates where far more than the average number of mothers go out to work? Will she, in the circumstances, consult local authorities with a view to providing more nursery school places as a matter of urgency?

Mrs. Thatcher: Leicester does very well for nursery school places compared with some other authorities. It has 22 per cent. of the 3–4 age group in receipt of nursery education. The problem about extending nursery school education is primarily one of resources.

Mr. Raison: Will my right hon. Friend encourage local authorities to give more help where they can to play groups, which could do something to meet this need?

Mrs. Thatcher: I am not responsible for play groups, which, under the previous Government, were put under the health authority, but I agree that they should be encouraged.

Mr. Edward Short: Will the Minister say what criteria she is currently using for the urban programme?

Mrs. Thatcher: The criteria are the same as those that existed under the previous Government.

Mr. Lane: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science whether she will make a further statement on her plan for expanding nursery schools.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will make a statement on her plans for nursery education.

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will make a statement about the expansion of nursery education.

Mrs. Thatcher: For the present our first priority is the improvement of primary schools. Nursery education will continue to benefit from the urban programme.

Mr. Lane: In view of the great demand for more nursery education, may I ask my right hon. Friend not to close her mind to novelty but to look sympathetically at all possible ways of meeting the demand, including the kind of project recently approved by her Department in my constituency the capital cost of which was raised in a few months by voluntary public subscription?

Mrs. Thatcher: Indeed, I look sympathetically at this kind of demand. As I have said, the limiting factor is resources. That is the only thing which is stopping the advance of nursery education.

Mrs. Renée Short: Is the right hon. Lady aware that many local education authorities are themselves very anxious to expand nursery education and willing to do this from their existing resources? Therefore, will she bear in mind that if she wants to get the best value out of investment in education, it would be good economics, if the matter is considered from that standpoint alone, to spend more on nursery education and consequently have to spend less on remedial work in secondary schools because of the failure to lay the right foundations?

Mrs. Thatcher: I know that the hon. Lady and many of my hon. Friends are anxious to extend nursery education as fast as possible. As the hon. Lady knows, the cost is considerable. The annual cost per child in a nursery school is £140.

Miss Lestor: Can the right hon. Lady assure the House and the public generally that she has rejected the idea of charging fees for State nursery schools?

Mrs. Thatcher: I have not rejected the idea, but I have no proposals to pursue it at the moment.

High-Energy Physics (Research Expenditure)

Mr. J. H. Osborn: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is now the annual expenditure, both capital and current, authorised by Her

Majesty's Government either directly through government research establishments, through the Science Research Council, from universities and colleges, respectively, and in total on high-energy physics; and what plans she has for limiting this expenditure in order to play a full part in the 300 Gev C.E.R.N. programme.

Mrs. Thatcher: The Science Research Council's expenditure on high-energy physics in 1970–71 will be about £20m., including the subscription to C.E.R.N. Expenditure by universities and colleges will be about £800,000.
To meet the 300 GeV commitment the Science Research Council proposes to make reductions in the high-energy physics programme, principally at the two national nuclear physics laboratories.

Mr. Osborn: I welcome my right hon. Friend's original decision to take part in the C.E.R.N. programme, but can she indicate what the effect of these reductions will be, because all scientists, here and in Europe, welcome the idea that the major programme should now be started?

Mrs. Thatcher: The effect of the reductions will be that the programmes at Rutherford and Daresbury will probably be reduced.

Mr. Alan Williams: Will the right hon. Lady tell us what effect she expects the C.E.R.N. project will have on the employment of scientists in this country, and will she give a detailed analysis of cuts in expenditure programmes in other science areas which have been made in order to allow the C.E.R.N. programme project to go forward, so that we can assess the benefits of C.E.R.N. against costs elsewhere?

Mrs. Thatcher: I cannot give details of other projects yet. It will be a matter for the Science Research Council. As to the other part of the hon. Member's supplementary question, I do not think that there will be any substantial difference in the employment of scientists in this country. There will still need to be preparatory experiments to go to C.E.R.N.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I welcomed my right hon. Friend's answer to me on this subject last week, but may I particularly ask what percentage of the total expenditure of the S.R.C. will now be devoted to high-energy physics?

Mrs. Thatcher: I cannot give a specific percentage, but the proportion to be devoted to high-energy physics is expected to be reduced.

Space Research (Expenditure)

Mr. J. H. Osborn: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is the annual expenditure incurred on scientific experiments in space and application through the Scientific Research Council, universities, and other institutions for which she is responsible, respectively, and in total; how much of this is spent through the National Aeronautics and Space Agency, European Space Research Organisation, and our own launching and monitoring facilities; and if she will make a statement about her future programme.

Mrs. Thatcher: The Science Research Council's expenditure on space science in 1970–71 is about £9 million. Of this, £5 million goes to the European Space Research Organisation and the balance provides for the preparation of experiments by the council and universities and for launching and monitoring facilities. The council does not contribute directly to the National Aeronautics and Space Agency's expenditure. Details of expenditure through the U.G.C. are not available.
The Science Research Council decides, subject to international commitments, the amount of its resources to be allocated to space research and the programme to be followed.

Mr. Osborn: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. This is a complicated matter, and no doubt she knows that it has been taken up by a Select Committee. Can she indicate what the forward programme is likely to be?

Mrs. Thatcher: Not at present. We shall, as my hon. Friend was assured last week, continue to make a contribution to E.S.R.O.

Mr. Edward Short: Can the right hon. Lady say what her policy is for the S.R.C.? Is it to continue in existence? Is it to continue under her Department? What is the policy of the Government on the structure?

Mrs. Thatcher: The structure of the Science Research Council remains for

the time being as it was, and I hope that the council will remain with me.

Students (B.Ed. Degrees)

Mr. Barry Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science how many Bachelor of Education degrees were awarded to students in 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970; how many students failed to get such degrees in each of these years; and if she will make a statement.

Mr. van Straubenzee: The first degrees were awarded in 1968. The numbers awarded in 1968, 1969 and 1970 were 208, 1,368 and 2,268 respectively, and the numbers of failed candidates in the same years, 14, 96 and 149 respectively.

Mr. Barry Jones: Is the Under-Secretary aware that the development of this degree has been, to say the least, somewhat sketchy and highly localised? Is he further aware that in the colleges there is some discontent among students at the manner in which they are drafted to the courses, and will he institute a survey?

Mr. van Straubenzee: I am aware of certain anxieties in certain quarters. I think it likely that the forthcoming inquiry will have this matter, at least in part, under its surveillance.

Schools (Fire Precautions)

Mr. Barry Jones: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what is her policy regarding fire precautions in schools.

Mrs. Thatcher: I attach great importance to the maintenance of adequate fire precautions. Safety requirements are laid down in Statutory Regulations.

Mr. Barry Jones: Is the right hon. Lady aware that many schools, particularly primary and nursery schools, are built of wooden units which are very much a fire risk? Is she further aware that combustible materials are sometimes stored against the outside walls of such buildings? Is she absolutely sure that adequate fire precautions are observed regularly in these schools?

Mrs. Thatcher: I can only point out that Her Majesty's Inspectors visiting schools would normally draw attention to any obvious deficiency in the precautions taken against fire.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that the key words in her last sentence were "obvious deficiency"? Is she aware that when the Inner London Education Authority recently carried out a survey it was found that very many schools were way below the standard required by these instructions, and as this is a very serious situation will she take some urgent action?

Mrs. Thatcher: I am sure that if that was so in I.L.E.A. the attention of the authority was drawn to it, and I trust that the position was remedied.

Mr. Merlyn Rees: Will the Secretary of State consider increasing the rate support grant if the Fire Precautions Bill which is now going through Parliament means that many local authorities will have to spend more money on fire precautions because in many areas precautions are very inadequate?

Mrs. Thatcher: The Fire Precautions Bill proposes that schools shall be subject to the certification procedure. I had not thought of increasing the rate support grant. In any case, the question would be not for me but for my right hon. Friend.

Libraries (Public Lending Rights)

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will have further discussions with interested organisations about the need for a Public Lending Right Bill and legislation to enable public libraries to charge for borrowed books and to pay authors in a manner similar to that adopted in respect of musicians' performing rights.

Mrs. Thatcher: My noble Friend has this complex matter under examination but is not yet ready to discuss it with interested organisations.

Mr. Iremonger: As libraries are in effect charging the more serious kind of reader by way of fines for books kept out for more than a week and by means of reservation charges, would it not be better to do this honestly and frankly by legislation and then make proper provision for stopping the present practice of legalised theft of authors' property?

Mrs. Thatcher: I would not agree with my hon. Friend's description of borrow-

ing library books. I will put the points he has made to my noble Friend.

Mr. Faulds: Do the Government intend that any scheme they introduce will follow the recommendations of the White Report and be based on the Danish model of using book stocks as the foundation? As this matter has dragged on for a considerable time, will the right hon. Lady attack it with a little more zest and expedition?

Mrs. Thatcher: My noble Friend is certainly attacking the matter with very great zest but has not yet reached any conclusion. Therefore, there is nothing that I can add to my previous reply.

ASSISTANCE TO INDUSTRY (MINISTER'S SPEECH)

Mr. Sheldon: asked the Prime Minister if the public speech by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to an electronics industry conference on 19th November on the subject of Government assistance to industry represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Reginald Maudling): I have been asked to reply.
Yes, Sir.

Mr. Sheldon: As the Government say that they believe so much in competition, why does not this apply to interest on bank deposits? Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself has called this a cartel? Why is he so reluctant to end it?

Mr. Maudling: I do not see that a question about the rules for interest rates on bank deposits arises from a Question about Government assistance to industry.

Mr. Heffer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government's policy is causing a great deal of uncertainty in areas like Merseyside, which now has 34,000 unemployed—the highest level for a long time—with further unemployment looming as a result of the Government's failure in relation to the docks and with Cadbury's about to close part of its factories? Will the right hon. Gentleman encourage his colleagues to change their


policy on assistance to industry, particularly with relation to areas like Merseyside?

Mr. Maudling: No, Sir. Our policy on assistance to industry is quite clear. The position of Merseyside was debated in the House. Nobody can lay the difficulties of Merseyside at this Government's door.

HACKNEY

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Prime Minister if he will make an official visit to Hackney.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend has at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Davis: Is it not a great pity that the right hon. Gentleman has denied himself the opportunity of being confronted with the inhumane and irresponsible management by the Tory-controlled G.L.C. of a number of its properties in Hackney, particularly 12 very squalid terrace houses in Paragon Road, where no fewer than seven public health notices have been served by the London Borough of Hackney upon the G.L.C.? Is it not outrageous that the Secretary of State for the Environment has not allowed a public inquiry into this matter?

Mr. Maudling: I do not think that it is outrageous in any sense, but if the hon. Gentleman wants to pursue particular points about housing problems in London he should do so with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.

DISABLED PERSONS' AIDS (EXHIBITION)

Mr. Carter-Jones: asked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to the forthcoming permanent exhibition of aids for the physically disabled organised by the Disabled Living Foundation, details of which are in his possession.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend has at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Carter-Jones: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that he would be doing extremely good work for the dis-

abled if he could persuade the Prime Minister to make an official visit to this exhibition, and that anything which is done to advance knowledge of the aids which are available to the disabled would be greatly welcomed by everyone? There are many hon. Members on both sides of the House who believe that the disabled are suffering too much because there is lack of knowledge of all the aids which are available to them.

Mr. Maudling: I recognise that the exhibition is an excellent enterprise. My right hon. Friend, who has many calls on his time, will, I know, be happy to consider the possibility. In the meantime, as the hon. Gentleman knows, my right hon. Friends who are responsible for the needs of the disabled are helping in any way they can.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is also an extremely important occasion for the severely disabled? Is he aware in particular of the help that the Disabled Living Foundation can give to local welfare authorities in helping the severely disabled? Will the right hon. Gentleman try to ensure that at least one senior Minister visits this important exhibition?

Mr. Maudling: Certainly I will. I think that it is a very important exhibition, and the Government are giving as much help as they can. On the question of a visit, I will talk to my right hon. Friend.

NEW ZEALAND

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister if he will visit New Zealand after the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister considered the possibility of visiting New Zealand at that time but concluded it would not be possible.

Mr. Marten: That is a great pity. In the meantime, will my right hon. Friend say whether the Government stand by the assurance of their predecessors that Britain will not join the Common Market unless arrangements are made to protect the vital interests of New Zealand? If


there are any derogations from that, will he tell the House what they are?

Mr. Maudling: There is no doubt on either side of the House about this country's obligations to New Zealand. The particular problem of New Zealand is a very prominent feature of the position of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy in the neogtiations.

Mr. Moyle: If the worst comes to the worst, will the right hon. Gentleman say that the current New Zealand agreement will run until Britain signs the Treaty of Rome, and that otherwise trading relations between the two countries will continue undisturbed into the future?

Mr. Maudling: No, Sir, I am not prepared to assume that the worst will come to the worst; I do not think it will for a moment. The position of New Zealand is a very important feature of the negotiations to which Her Majesty's Government attach the highest importance.

CIVIL LIST

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Prime Minister when he intends to set up the Select Committee to review the Civil List.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
I would refer the hon. Member to the answer which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave him on 27th October.—[Vol. 805, c. 25–6.]

Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of us on this side of the House are concerned with the urgency of giving some form of national assistance of lower-paid workers who will otherwise have a very bleak Christmas? Is there any prospect of setting up this Committee in the current Session?

Mr. Maudling: I am afraid that I cannot make a statement about this at the moment.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Since the value of the Civil List has fallen considerably behind the rise in revenues from the Crown lands made over to Parliament on Her Majesty's accession, may we be assured that there will be no increase in

parliamentary salaries, including that of the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), until Parliament has done justice to the Sovereign?

Mr. Maudling: Hon. Members are straying a little from the original Question. If and when the matter is brought before the House all relevant considerations will be taken into account.

Mr. C. Pannell: Among the relevant considerations, will the Home Secretary take into account all those matters which, since 1952, have been taken over by Government Departments from the Civil List? Will he compare that as an effective answer to the mistaken constitutional ideas of the hon. Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison)?

Mr. Maudling: I do not think that we should argue these matters in advance. If a Motion should be brought before the House all these considerations can be advanced.

SOUTH AFRICA (ARMS SUPPLY)

Mr. Wall: asked the Prime Minister what official communication he has received from the Prime Minister of South Africa on the supply of maritime arms for the defence of the Cape Route; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
None, Sir.

Mr. Wall: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the South African Government have now indicated what maritime arms they need to share in the joint defence of the Cape route, and when can we expect a final statement on this matter, which has been outstanding for six months?

Mr. Maudling: I understand that we have a general idea of South African defence requirements, if not in particular details. As for the timing of the announcement on policy, this must rest with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who made it clear that he will make an announcement at the appropriate moment.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: As the Prime Minister is reported at his Ottawa Press Conference this morning as having said that


he regards himself in this matter as absolutely bound by the terms of the agreement, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether that is the view of the Government on which the Prime Minister was correctly reported, or whether consultations with the Commonwealth have any meaning?

Mr. Maudling: The Government regard themselves as being bound by the terms of the agreement made with this country. Consultations with the Commonwealth are certainly of a genuine character, and it is because those consultations have been so protracted that an announcement has not yet been made.

Mr. Tapsell: In this context, have any communications been received from the leaders of any of the other African Commonwealth countries about our overflying rights across Africa, which are of such vital importance to our Far Eastern defence?

Mr. Maudling: Any communications between Heads of Government obviously must remain confidential.

Mr. Faulds: Is it not the fact that the Simonstown Agreement has no binding commitment for the continuing supply of arms?

Mr. Maudling: One could argue on that in considerable detail. This will obviously be a matter to be discussed when the Government's policy is made known. The answer I gave to the right hon. Gentleman was simply that we believe in keeping agreements.

INFLATION (MINISTER'S SPEECH)

Mr. Barnett: asked the Prime Minister if the public speech of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs at Kinross on 20th November referring to inflation represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
Yes, Sir.

Mr. Barnett: Recalling the Home Secretary's attempt to deal with these problems and his brave but unsuccessful attempt to rid himself of the albatross

of the £800 million deficit he bequeathed, has he never thought of suggesting to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that one way of dealing with them might be the method which he tried and which was so rudely interrupted in October, 1964, by the General Election?

Mr. Maudling: I do not think the interruption was rude, although I think it was a pity. Whether or not my attempts were brave, the fact that they were unsuccessful rests on the Government which took over in 1964.

BRITISH INDIAN OCEAN TERRITORY

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Prime Minister what discussions he has had with Mr. Nixon on the proposed British/United States base/staging post in the British Indian Ocean territory.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
I have nothing to add to the answer I gave to the hon. Member on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 12th November.—[Vol. 806, c. 255.]

Mr. Dalyell: Is it wise in this day and age for an American President and a British Prime Minister to go ahead with a base in the Indian Ocean against the express wishes of Indira Gandhi, the Indian Government and Ceylon and with no consultation with Commonwealth countries?

Mr. Maudling: I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of that supplementary question; I appreciate his courtesy. Of course we are concerned with the views of our Commonwealth partners in all these matters, but the ultimate decision about the security and defence of this country must rest with the British Government. Since 1967 it has been made quite clear that the use of this territory for defence purposes was a matter being kept under review by the United States and British Governments. That has been the position since 1967.

Mr. George Thomson: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the specific question put by my hon. Friend? Were the Indian and Ceylon Governments given information in advance about this plan


before a public announcement was made by the British and American Governments?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, they were informed before the public announcement was made.

Sir T. Beamish: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the British Indian Ocean territory was set up by the last Government with the object of creating just such a staging post as this?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, that was enshrined in the White Paper at the time.

PUBLIC CORPORATIONS (CRICHEL DOWN RULE)

Mr. Turton: asked the Prime Minister whether he will instruct Ministers to issue directions to public corporations within their responsibility that the Crichel Down rule shall be applied in all cases of disposal of agricultural land which formerly had been requisitioned or compulsorily purchased.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
I do not think that it would be appropriate to issue directions. If, as I understand, my right hon. Friend has in mind particular points concerning British Rail, perhaps he would care to draw them to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries.

Mr. Turton: Is it not inequitable that a citizen should be deprived of the protection of the Crichel Down rule if land which is compulsorily purchased or requisitioned comes into the hands of a nationalised industry or public corporation?

Mr. Maudling: So far as I can gather, the Crichel Down procedure would not have covered the cases which my right hon. Friend has in mind. This is a matter which we are prepared to consider, but I ask my right hon. Friend to be kind enough to take it up in the first instance with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries.

MARINE OIL RIG (VISIT)

Mr. Peter Archer: asked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to a marine oil rig.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend has no plans to do so.

Mr. Archer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I was precluded by the rules of order from inviting the Prime Minister to visit the sea bed? As an alternative, will he invite the Prime Minister to read the report of the enlightening debate in another place on 25th November on the urgent necessity for an international régime over the ocean, and will he do something about it?

Mr. Maudling: Yes, I am sure that my right hon. Friend will be delighted to read that debate. The whole question of national and international jurisdiction over the sea bed is at present under consideration in the United Nations.

Mr. Marten: To avoid the taking up of the time of the House in asking about visits to Hackney and oil rigs, would not it be better to publish a list of what the Prime Minister was going to do, and then hon. Members opposite would not have to ask these Questions?

ECONOMIC INCENTIVES (PRIME MINISTER'S SPEECH)

Mr. Peter Archer: asked the Prime Minister if he will place in the Library of the House of Commons a copy of his public speech to the Parliamentary Press Gallery on 25th November, 1970, on the subject of economic incentives.

Mr. Maudling: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend's remarks were delivered extempore.

Mr. Archer: Is the House to assume from that answer that no one troubled to take a note? If anyone did, will the Home Secretary explain whether it is regarded by the Government as an incentive to impose a plethora of means tests on the lower income groups? If not, are they less in need of an incentive than his paymasters?

Mr. Maudling: The point which my right hon. Friend made, which was totally valid, concerned reductions of taxation, both corporate and individual, as an incentive to effort.

QUESTIONS TO MINISTERS

Mr. Baxter: On a point of order. Do I gather that no request has been made by the Secretary of State for Scotland to answer Question No. 99, which is of considerable importance, not only to the people of Scotland, but to people throughout Great Britain? I had thought that some report would be made on the untimely deaths of 12 people in a hospital in Scotland.

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but he has gathered correctly. There has been no indication from the Minister that he wished to answer the Question.

Mr. Jennings: I should like to ask for your assistance, Mr. Speaker. You will notice that Question No. Q15 to the Prime Minister, in the name of the hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris), asks my right hon Friend to visit Burton-on-Trent. I wonder whether you, Mr. Speaker, would stretch the rules of order to allow the Question to be answered. You will be aware that I am the one and only Member for Burton. If it were possible for the Question to be answered it would satisfy my curiousity about what interest Manchester had in Burton-on-Trent, apart from an interest in its staple product.

Mr. Speaker: I am surprised that one of my senior Chairmen should invite me to stretch the rules of order. I am distressed with him.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. William Whitelaw): The business for the first week after the Christmas Adjournment will be as follows:
TUESDAY, 12TH JANUARY—The House will meet at 2.30 p.m. and proceed to the election of a Speaker.
WEDNESDAY, 13TH JANUARY—Second Reading of the Armed Forces Bill [Lords].
Remaining stages of the Oil in Navigable Waters Bill.
Motion on the Civil Defence (Posts and Telecommunications) Regulations.
THURSDAY, 14TH JANUARY—Second Reading of the Courts Bill [Lords].
FRIDAY, 15TH JANUARY—Remaining stages of the Atomic Energy Authority Bill.
Second Reading of the Water Resources Bill [Lords].
MONDAY, 18TH JANUARY—Progress on the Committee stage of the Industrial Relations Bill.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: There are not many questions which arise from the business for the first week after the Recess, but nonetheless, as the Rudi Dutschke case is opening today, without wishing to comment on it in any way, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can give an assurance that Mr. Dutschke will not be made to leave the country while the House is in recess—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am always concerned when Members come close to discussing sub judice matters.

Mr. Jenkins: —and that the House will not therefore be presented with an accomplished fact in this matter of considerable public concern?

Mr. Whitelaw: I have consulted my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and I can give the right hon. Gentleman the assurance for which he asks.

Mr. Turton: Can my right hon. Friend say on what date there will be the debate on the negotiations for entry into the Common Market which was foreshadowed in the statement made yesterday by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster?

Mr. Whitelaw: I cannot as yet tell my right hon. Friend the exact date, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster undertook that it would be held before 2nd February when the next stage of the negotiations takes place.

Mr. Orme: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that some back bench Members have watched with fascination the debate going on outside the House about the proposed election of our new Speaker? Has his attention been drawn to the article in the New Statesman today by Mr. Alan Watkins in which he is directly quoted as saying to the Lobby


last week that this matter had already been fixed, signed and sealed? Will he comment on it?

Mr. Whitelaw: It would be quite wrong for me to comment on any article of that sort. I hope that the House will feel that the election of the new Speaker is a most important matter for the House. The House as a whole will wish to conduct the election with the greatest possible decorum and good will. In anything that I have done I have sought to act in accordance with the precedents which have been followed by previous Governments. If I have made mistakes I am responsible for them to the House. But I have honestly done my best to do what I believed right in the interests of the whole House.

Mr. Model: Can my right hon. Friend say when we may expect to have a debate on the Roskill Inquiry into the third London airport?

Mr. Whitelaw: No, I cannot. I understand that the summary of the recommendations of the report is to be published tomorrow. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will answer a Written Question. I also understand that it will take six to eight weeks to print the full report. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has also arranged for a copy of the summary of recommendations to be sent to every hon. Member.

Mr. Loughlin: May I again draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the Motion on the Order Paper in my name and that of over 100 hon. Members dealing with the possibility of an increase for old-age pensioners and, in particular, a once-for-all payment for Christmas time?

[That this House, noting with great concern the ever-increasing cost of living and, in particular, the enormous and continuing increases in food prices, and alarmed at the effect of such increases on the aged and those living on fixed incomes, calls upon Her Majesty's Government to increase substantially retirement pensions forthwith and to offset any delay due to administrative problems by making an interim payment on a once-for-all basis before Christmas 1970.]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is an affront to the dignity of the House that we deny a little succour to old-age pensioners at Christmas time and agree to an increase of £2,500 a year for High Court judges? Will the right hon. Gentleman do something about this matter?

Mr. Whitelaw: My problem in answering questions on business is that, quite correctly, it is not my job to go into the merits of any case put to me. All I can say is that I realise the importance of the basic question which the hon. Gentleman has raised. I do not agree with many of his other comments. I cannot promise to debate on the Motion in the immediate future.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Will my right hon. Friend give sympathetic consideration to a matter which was referred to yesterday, namely that in future statements on the negotiations for entry into the European Economic Community which contained complicated figures of statistical calculations should be made available half an hour or so in advance of their being made? Does my right hon. Friend agree that in this unusual situation in which the usual channels have converged into a single stream there is a strong case for wider dissemination of these documents to assist Parliament in its duty of interrogation and the Minister in his duty of exposition?

Mr. Whitelaw: I shall look into what my right hon. and learned Friend has said. I should make it clear that both the previous Government and this Government have been most anxious to make statements to the House as often as was possible and sensible in all the circumstances. We continue to be most anxious to do that. We have also undertaken to give time for a debate.
I will consult my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to see what can be done to help right hon. and hon. Members in connection with making complicated statements available in advance.

Mr. Carter: As the Leader of the House has said that he wants to carry out adequate consultations in the matter of the election of a new Speaker, can he tell me when and where he wishes to consult me in order to hear my views?

Mr. Whitelaw: I am always subject to correction in what I have said, because I am never very sure myself what I have said. I did not actually hear myself say that I would be most anxious to consult everybody on this matter. I said that I had done my best—[Interruption.] I only think that I am entitled to say what I thought I said, and what I think I said was that I had been most anxious to serve the interests of the House in conducting this matter with the maximum possible care, because it is inevitably a delicate question.

Mr. Marten: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the debate on the Common Market will be a two-day debate? If it is not, it will be a very frustrating affair.

Mr. Whitelaw: I should confine myself to the promise that there will be a day's debate on the Common Market before the next step in the negotiations. I do not think that I should go further than that.

Mr. Faulds: When will the right hon. Gentleman afford us an opportunity to debate the museum and art gallery charges to be imposed? The subject has already been debated in another place.

Mr. Whitelaw: Perhaps I would be right to say at this stage—not next week.

Mr. Faulds: I did not ask for that.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Is my right hon. Friend in a position to provide time for a debate before Decimal Day on the problems which are emerging in connection with the introduction of decimal currency, so that the opportunity will be given of clearing up the many misrepresentations and omissions which have been perpetrated on the country, particularly by the Decimal Currency Board in relation to the 6d.?

Mr. Whitelaw: Again, my problem in answering this question is that I must not drift into policy. I cannot necessarily accept, however, what my hon. Friend said about the activities of the Board. I will consider his request, but at this stage without any commitment. I realise the importance of the subject.

Mr. William Hamilton: May I revert to the question of the election of a Speaker? The House is properly sensitive

about this matter. The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that names have already been bandied about. Can he tell us when the final nomination day is and to whom nominations should be sent, because we have several names in mind? Can he tell us what the procedure will be if three or more candidates are in the field?

Mr. Whitelaw: The hon. Gentleman must be his own judge of what is the best way to conduct this procedure. I understand that it is perfectly possible for hon. Members to be nominated on the day of the election of the Speaker. On the question of the exact procedure to be followed, I would be right at this stage to confine myself, as Mr. Speaker himself normally does in such matters, to say that it would be wrong for me at this stage to answer a hypothetical question.

Dame Irene Ward: My right hon. Friend has stated that we shall have a debate, perhaps two days, on the Common Market. Will he try to persuade the House of Commons that in the debate some of those who have never had a chance of speaking on the Common Market should be called? I am rather tired of hearing the same speeches over and over and over again—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—and as this is a very important matter hon. Members who happen to be ordinary back benchers rather than perhaps Privy Councillors, etc., etc., should have a chance for once to say what they think.

Mr. Whitelaw: I think that in the circumstances I might seem to be adrift this afternoon, but in view of the timing of the debate, I think that I would be right to say that the question of who is called in it must be a matter for Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Strauss: Can the right hon. Gentleman be more precise than he has been able to be in the past and tell us when he proposes to bring before the House the Government's proposals on the Report of the Committee of Privileges, which has been lying around waiting for action for three years?

Mr. Whitelaw: I appreciate what the right hon. Gentleman says about this somewhat complicated matter. I am afraid that I cannot tell him today when I will be in a position to do what he asks, but I recognise the urgency of the matter.

Mr. Rankin: Three years.

Mr. Whitelaw: Before the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) proceeds further on that course from his seated position, he might recognise how most of those three years has been occupied. If he did, he might reflect that while I may not have been quick others have been less quick. I am anxious to bring this matter forward as soon as I can.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer: Will my right hon. Friend draw the attention of the Secretary of State for the Social Services to Early Day Motion No. 53, upon which a statement was promised as long ago as last June? Will he provide the time for it?

[That this House calls upon the Secretary of State for Social Sevices to set up immediately an independent inquiry into the working of the Abortion Act which has been in operation for over two years and which has caused widespread public concern and considers that any such inquiry should assess the effects of the Act on the health of the nation as well as on its legal, social and moral life and should recommend any changes in the law which are in the public interest.]

Mr. Whitelaw: I recognise the importance of the subject, but I cannot say exactly when a statement will be made or promise time for a debate at this moment.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: In view of the tremendous importance of the question of the Common Market, does the right hon. Gentleman really think that opinions can be properly ventilated in one day's debate? Will he give two or perhaps three days for this burning question?

Mr. Whitelaw: I appreciate fully the very important issues involved, but the House appreciates that at this stage the negotiations are still going on. They were started by the last Government, as agreed to by the House of Commons, and the time when these issues can finally be decided can only be at the end of the negotiations. I believe that the House wishes the negotiations to proceed. I do not believe that it would be possible to have long debates during the progress of these negotiations.

Mr. Wilkinson: In view of my right hon. Friend's announcement that a state-

ment is to be made tomorrow on the recommendations of the Roskill Commission, can he give an assurance that time for a debate will be found soon after we return after Christmas on whether a third London Airport is necessary before the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry makes a decision on those recommendations?

Mr. Whitelaw: It would be unwise for me at this stage to enter into a commitment when I have not the slightest idea what the Report will say. I take note of what my hon. Friend has said, and, without commitment, will consider it after the Recess.

Mr. Buchan: May I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the conduct of the Secretary of State for Scotland? Once again, on a very serious issue, the Secretary of State has not made a statement to this House. He has spoken once in the House since the General Election. Issue after issue and policy after policy have been annunciated in the Press instead of the House being informed in statements. This is now a positive political scandal and is rapidly becoming a national disgrace. Will he ask the Secretary of State for Scotland at least to make some statement about something at some time?

Mr. Whitelaw: Again, I would be very pleased to enter into an argument with the hon. Gentleman on the merits of what he has said, but that is not my job during business questions. But I will remind him that the procedure being followed under the present Government, as far as Scotland and the Secretary of State for Scotland are concerned, is a good deal more forthcoming than the procedure followed under the last Government.

Mr. Heffer: While recognising that the matter of the election of a Speaker is a very delicate matter indeed, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman for an assurance that back benchers will be properly consulted? It must be recognised that we are not mere cyphers and rubber stamps. [Interruption.] If hon. Members opposite think that back benchers on this side are rubber stamps, then they should learn that we are not. Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the matter is not settled and that there will be further consultations before the issue is brought before the House?

Mr. Whitelaw: I think that in all the things that have been said and in the various statements, correct or otherwise, attributed to me by various people, one thing has been perfectly clear, and on that one thing I will stand absolutely—that the decision as to who becomes Speaker is a matter for the House of Commons, that there can, of course, be an election, and that hon. Members are entitled to put up any candidate who can be proposed and seconded. All these things are quite open to back benchers to do, and they are in no way fettered in the matter. All I am saying, and I am entitled to continue to say, is, that while that is undoubtedly true, this House has a great tradition, going back over many years, of solving this very difficult and delicate problem on the whole with considerable satisfaction. It does not get engaged in unseemly and difficult problems.

Mr. Heffer: Unseemly?

Mr. Whitelaw: Yes. I can think of circumstances in which it certainly could be.

Mr. Heffer: Elections are not unseemly.

Mr. Whitelaw: The procedure has been conducted by the House over many years. If any hon. Members on the back benches wish to change that situation, theirs is the choice, and they could not be stopped from doing so and no one in my position has any right, or desire, to stop them from doing so. I have acted in what I thought was the general practice which had been followed in the past and which I thought was in the best interests of the House.

Mr. Gurden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that most hon. Members do not hold him responsible for precedents and that we appreciate the way in which in this matter he has gone through the usual channels? If there is any responsibility on the Opposition side of the House, it must be carried by the Opposition Front Bench.

Mr. William Hamilton: That is a lot of rubbish.

Mr. Whitelaw: That is not a matter for me.

Mr. Skinner: I wish to revert to the subject of the election of Mr. Speaker.

Let me say at the outset that I am still more than—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."] May I say—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am still a little perplexed—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."] Is the Leader of the House aware that there are many hon. Members, presumably on both sides of the House, who are still a little disturbed about the so-called usual channels? I want to know when the nominations are to be opened, when they are to be closed and, in the event of there being more than two contestants, how the voting will take place.

Mr. Whitelaw: There is no date by which nominations are closed. On the day of the election of Mr. Speaker it is perfectly open and proper for any hon. Member who wishes to nominate another to rise in his place and do so, and, if he has a seconder, the nomination goes forward. I see no reason for suggesting any change in that practice. How the matter then proceeds must depend on exactly what happens, and at this stage that is hypothetical. In any event, it is bound to be a matter for the authorities of the House.

Mr. Bidwell: May I revert to the subject of the business of the House on 12th January, which, alas, is to replace you, Mr. Speaker? May I ask the Leader of the House to expedite that procedure without unseemly haste, because 12th January is also an important day for other reasons? It is the day when the trade unions will be engaging in a kind of pre-burial mourning of trade union rights. There are many hon. Members who will wish to take part in those democratic procedures.

Mr. Whitelaw: I seem to be in sufficient trouble about those matters for which I am responsible, that is, the business of the House on that day, without getting involved in matters which are outside the House and for which I have no responsibility.

Mr. Robert Taylor: Has my right hon. Friend noticed that Early Day Motion No. 99 has now received the backing of more than 50 hon. Members? As it calls for urgent action on the Industrial Training Act, will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate after the Recess?

[That this House keenly supports the intention of the Engineering Industry


Training Board to exempt from training levy all firms in the engineering industry with annual payrolls not exceeding £25,000 and requests the Secretary for Employment to urge other Industrial Training Boards to do likewise, as an interim measure, pending the result of the Government's inquiry into Industrial Training.]

Mr. Whitelaw: I recognise the extreme importance of the matter to which my hon. Friend refers, but at this stage I could not promise time for a debate.

Dr. Miller: I revert to the uncanny silence of the Secretry of State for Scotland. Will the Leader of the House please convey to him that if he is suffering from laryngitis, there are doctors on this side of the House who would be willing to treat him, or to send him somewhere where he could have treatment? Would he convey to the Secretary of State the information that there are many of us who are deeply concerned about current issues in Scotland and that if the Secretary of State cannot make a statement, he should get someone in authority to do so?

Mr. Whitelaw: There are Questions to my right hon. Friend every three weeks when he answers all these issues. Exactly the same procedure is followed as was followed by the previous Government, except that we are a good deal more forthcoming.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: Would my right hon. Friend ensure that there is reasonable time between the tabling of Government Amendments and the taking of the Report stages of Bills? I refer to the Oil in Navigable Waters Bill, which is due to be taken on Report the day after the House returns. Government Amendments have not yet been tabled to it and if in response to them hon. Members wish to table Amendments, those will of necessity be starred Amendments, which will not be called by the Chair. This puts the House in great difficulty.

Mr. Whitelaw: I will certainly look into that matter. I recognise its importance.

Mr. Kaufman: Has the right hon. Gentleman noted the decisive vote of the House on the Hare Coursing Bill? In view of his growing reputation as a defender of the rights of back benchers, his

remarks on the election of the Speaker notwithstanding, will he give us some time after 10 o'clock one night to get a decision on Second Reading?

Mr. Whitelaw: Certainly not next week.

Mr. Rankin: Would the right hon. Gentleman see to it that if back benchers have to be considered in the matter of the election of the new Speaker, all back benchers and not just some are considered?

Mr. Whitelaw: It is only fair for me to say at this stage that in the whole process of the election of the Speaker there are some problems of which the hon. Member has raised one.

Mr. Atkinson: Would the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the closure for nominations for Speaker is on 12th January? Does this mean that there will be no Motion on the Order Paper for that day concerning the election of the Speaker? Will all nominations be made verbally?

Mr. Whitelaw: There will be no Motion on the Order Paper to nominate a particular Member to be Speaker. There will be a Motion on the Order Paper concerning the retiring Speaker, of course. Although it would be better if I did not go into the matter too deeply on the Floor of the House, I should be pleased to tell any hon. Member exactly what the procedures are. However, it is clear that they are in accordance with precedent, and the precedents will be followed exactly on 12th January. There will be no Motion on the Order Paper to nominate any one Member to be Speaker.

Mr. Dalyell: In view of the ugly situation reported on the front pages of the Scottish Press this morning concerning drug taking in certain schools in Scotland, would the Lord President of the Council reflect on the Departmental advice on the subject and allow a discussion on this urgent and growing problem?

Mr. Whitelaw: I recognise its importance. I cannot find time at this stage for such a debate, but I will note what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: My right hon. Friend will recall that in the last Parliament both usual channels were fairly well agreed that a considerable review of the


procedure of the business committees was needed for those occasions when the House decided to refer matters to a business committee. This was a matter of particular concern to members of the Chairmen's Panel. Will my right hon. Friend give this matter urgent consideration after Christmas?

Mr. Whitelaw: I will certainly note what my hon. Friend has said and I will give urgent consideration to it after Christmas.

MONOPOLIES COMMISSION

4.0 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and President of the Board of Trade (Mr. John Davies): With permission, I will make a statement about the measures which the Government are taking to strengthen the machinery for promoting competition in industry and for providing safeguards against the abuse of market power.
We shall in due course introduce legislation to reshape the Monopolies Commission, to widen its scope and powers and to make it more effective. Meanwhile, within the scope of the existing legislation, we shall make important changes of practice which will foreshadow the legislative proposals we shall eventually bring forward, and set the Monopolies Commission on a course enabling a smooth transition to be made to the new Commission which will replace it. In the transitional period we shall increase and strengthen the staff of the Commission and appoint additional full-time members as necessary.
The Commission will be encouraged to become the expert and authoritative source of information to the Government on situations of imperfect competition, and I shall be ready to consider proposals from it of possible subjects for formal inquiry. The power to make references will remain with me, but I shall have no objection to the Commission making its proposals public if it so wishes.
To enable shorter inquiries to be undertaken in appropriate cases, the Commission will be asked, so far as is possible within the existing legislation, to direct its attention to specific issues as an alterna-

tive to the traditional wide-ranging monopoly inquiry. For example, the Commission may be asked to investigate a particular practice by a company or industry, or to report on prices in a monopolistic situation. I hope, too, that these limited inquiries will permit simpler procedures to be adopted.
I shall make further references as necessary. I shall continue to use the power to refer proposed mergers to the Commission if I consider that competition in the relevant market would be restricted to a damaging degree as a result of the merger. I shall also hope from time-to-time to issue guidance on the principles being followed in making references to the Commission.
The Commission has in the past been used to inquire only into the activities of private industry. In future, I shall be ready to make use of the power in Section 2(2) of the Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Act, 1948, to ask the Monopolies Commission to give the Government information and assistance on questions arising out of the operations of publicly-owned enterprises which are in a monopoly position. But I shall bear in mind the need to avoid burdening those industries with a wholly unreasonable succession of investigations, as has happened in the past.
These measures will start to strengthen the authority of the Commission at once, and to make it a more effective body for promoting competition throughout the economy. But the Commission cannot be fully effective in the new directions I have outlined without legislative changes. In preparing such legislation, we, shall aim in particular to provide for a reconstituted Commission; for appropriate new powers to collect information and to propose inquiries; and for its powers of formal inquiry to be extended to cover public monopolies such as nationalised industries and other statutory trading bodies which are in a monopoly position.
The Government are also reviewing the restrictive trade practices legislation with a view to extending its scope and making it more effective. In particular, we shall be considering the case for bringing services within the legislation, for making registrable certain anti-competitive practices by single firms, and for making certain types of restrictive agreement illegal.
I should like to emphasise that in the preparation of legislation I shall want to consult fully with representative bodies in the light of experience of the steps I have outlined.

Mr. Benn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his statement, though long, contains very little information and is, in a sense, disappointing because, by contrast with the positive policy of trying to protect the consumer and encouraging industrial efficiency through the Consumer Council, the Prices and Incomes Board and the I.R.C., the right hon. Gentleman appears to have fallen back on a negative practice? Is he aware—indeed, he must be—that the extension to the public sector was provided by the Commission on Industry and Manpower, which the previous Government brought forward?
Will public interest findings on the nationalised industries be allowed, and exactly what will they mean? When will he be publishing the guidance to which he referred? Will there be a Green Paper on the new powers which he contemplates and will a Bill be introduced in the present Session?

Mr. Davies: The purpose of the Monopolies Commission, and its future development, is to deal with the long-term imperfections of competition. The Consumer Council and the Prices and Incomes Board were in a different time-scale. They were concerned rather more with medium than long-term considerations. Thus, the contrast which the right hon. Gentleman has made is a correct one, but it is not fair, that being so, to comment critically on the content of my statement.
As for the public sector, the intention is to utilise the Section of the 1948 Act which allows the Monopolies Commission to be used in a more general sense than on a straightforward reference and, in doing so, to gain experience over the course of the ensuing period.
The answer to the right hon. Gentleman's question about the possibility of publishing a Green Paper is that my hope was that this statement would serve as a vehicle for a considerable degree of public discussion and for the period until legislation is introduced to be in a sense one of experiment. I hope that this

experimental phase—which will, if all goes well, give rise to legislation, not in this Session but in the next Session of Parliament—will enable it to be perfected during the intervening period.

Mr. Benn: Having said that he now contemplates this as a long-term operation, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman why there are to be short-term studies on specific areas—of a kind which were dealt with by the Prices and Incomes Board, which had 140 reports? Will the right hon. Gentleman answer my other question, about whether there will be public interest findings which have a specific statutory significance in relation to the nationalised industries?

Mr. Davies: Am I right in supposing, on the latter point, that the right hon. Gentleman is referring to the broad field of efficiency studies and so on? I am not clear what he means by referring to public interest matters. The public interest is the responsibility of my Department in relation to the nationalised industries with which I am concerned. I therefore do not fully follow his question. The intention here is that the Monopolies Commission should, in the period until further legislation occurs, be on a more or less voluntary basis to examine the position in the nationalised industries, and to advise the Government accordingly.

Mr. Tom Boardman: While welcoming the statement and in particular the proposals for reforming the procedure, may I ask my right hon. Friend if during the transitional period he will see that account is taken of the time, expense and dislocation that is involved in a full reference and ensure that there is established a prima facie case before he makes a reference?

Mr. Davies: This purpose will, of course, be served considerably by using the Monopolies Commission more than it has hitherto been used as the receptive body for knowledge and experience in the whole sphere of competition, and it should be able with greater ability to advise the Government on issues which can be succinctly and effectively dealt with. The purpose of the Government in trying to narrow the field of the terms of reference will also prove to be advantageous in speeding up the completion of inquiries.

Mr. John Mendelson: Has the Secretary of State noted the deep concern that has existed among work people in all parts of the country in recent years when mergers have been proposed, particularly when they have been discussed in complete and utter secrecy? Will he make sure that in future the trade unions, representatives of the people and all other associations are fully consulted in private at the earliest possible moment so that they do not learn as a fait accompli at the last moment of how large redundancies may result from mergers? Will he ensure that from the very beginning everybody concerned in the Administration takes note of this point?

Mr. Davies: The hon. Gentleman will realise that mergers are, by their very nature, of an extremely sensitive character, not only in relation to the shareholders, managers and boards of companies, but, of course, to the work forces in the companies concerned. These matters are very much in my mind, but I direct the hon. Gentleman's attention nevertheless to what I said in my statement: that I would make a reference of a merger only if I considered that competition in the relevant market would be restricted to a damaging degree as a result of that merger. My purpose here is to strengthen the forces leading to improved competition in the economy.

Mr. Lane: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these proposals will be widely welcomed? Can he say a little more about any consideration that he has given to the desirability, possibly through the appointment of a single registrar or some such official, of unifying the system more so as to cover both the monopolies and the restrictive practices parts?

Mr. Davies: Consideration has been given to that type of suggestion. It is considered that it would be wise to maintain a distinction between the strictly judicial character of the Restrictive Trade Practices Court and the somewhat different statutory character of the Monopolies Commission, or its successor, and I think that that distinction is worthy of preserving. I have given consideration also to the possible nomination of a Registrar within the field of monopoly, but that consideration has brought us to the conclusion that that would not be a wise course because the Registrar in question, who would not be within the

framework of a judicial position, as he is in the Restrictive Trade Practices Court, would have responsibility to nobody. We thought it was preferable that the Monopolies Commission, which has a direct responsibility to me, should be its own vehicle for examination in this field.

Mr. Palmer: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain how these new powers of the Monopolies Commission in relation to the nationalised industries are to be reconciled with normal ministerial responsibility for nationalised industries and with investigations from time to time by Select Committees of this House into nationalised industries?

Mr. Davies: First of all, let me point out that the moment I am taking no new powers. We are entering into a period of the maximum use of the present powers. The proposals that I have made will in no way limit the scrutiny and rights of the various people who take responsibility for nationalised industries in the face of the public, whether it be Parliament or the Select Committees, or the Minister, each one of whom has a particular part to play. My great concern, however, is that in seeing these matters as a whole we should, as far as possible, seek to avoid imposing what has become something of an intolerable burden of inquiry on the lives of the managements of the nationalised industries.

Mr. Tapsell: While fully sharing my right hon. Friend's enthusiasm for competition, may I ask him whether he will bear in mind that competition within what may be broadly called the professions may well be best achieved by standards of skill and professional integrity rather than by competition purely through price, which often leads to a lowering of standards?

Mr. Davies: My hon. Friend will know that in the light of a recent report of the Monopolies Commission, I have written to the senior officers of most of the representative bodies of those professions, quoting to them the opinions expressed by the Monopolies Commission—

Mr. Speaker: Order. It will help the HANSARD reporters if the Minister will address the Chair.

Mr. Davies: I apologise, Mr. Speaker.
I have asked the senior officers of these institutions if they will give consideration to the recommendations of the Monopolies Commission and whether they would, after a period of six months, let me know what they then consider is the appropriate course of action to take.

Mr. Dell: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that his statement represents a complete abandonment of major elements in the competition policy put forward by the Government before the General Election? Not merely has he abandoned the Registrar of monopolies and mergers, but equally he has completely abandoned self-referencing by the Commission or the Registrar of Monopolies and Mergers. Can he say whether his remarks about policy for referring mergers means that he is abandoning the £5 million asset criterion in respect of the reference of mergers, and whether he intends to do anything about additional financial disclosure as part of competition policy, or whether he is leaving this to the Ides of March when he may be able to bring in a Companies Bill?

Mr. Davies: As to the Registrar and self-referencing, I have dealt with the subject already. The Registrar was found to be less perfect, to our minds, than the system which we have adopted.
The self-referencing is covered by giving the Monopolies Commission, in the interim, a very free hand to make recommendations in the light of its own general scrutiny of the efficacy of competition impulses in the economy. These matters are covered just as well—in fact, better—in the proposals which I have made than those to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me about financial disclosure, and he has referred to the Ides of March. I see nothing particularly magical in that date, which has a more tragic connotation. I hope, indeed, to be looking into this question in relation to any changes which may be foreseen in company law.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that the answer that he gave a moment or two ago to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) will be well received by those who have given some study to these matters, in that he proposes to

preserve the dichotomy established by the 1956 legislation whereby monopolies of scale go to the Commission and restrictive practices to the Court? Does he further agree that the main scope for advance and improvement is in the context of the Monopolies Commission and that the judicial processes instituted by the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956 have been very successful?

Mr. Davies: As to the Restrictive Trade Practices Court, I am not sure exactly what "success" means in this particular connection. On the whole, I should have thought that the findings of the Court over the years have proved not how great are the restrictive areas in British industry but, on the contrary, how little they are. I have mentioned that we are contemplating something of an extension of the activities of the Restrictive Trade Practices Court into fields which it does not at present cover.

Mr. Sheldon: While welcoming the increase in staff which will presumably enable the Commission to report in a rather shorter time than it has done in the past, when so many of its reports were wildly out of date by the time they were received, will the right hon. Gentleman not accept that this is rather a mouse of a measure by comparison with the great schemes that we were led to believe would result from their interest in increasing competition? Since this is an interim measure, would the right hon. Gentleman say when we can expect the Bill which will produce the far-reaching plans which we were assured would come before the House?

Mr. Davies: I do not consider that the proposals I have made are at all small. On the contrary, I think they are very profound. I think I have already mentioned the timing of the legislation in question. I repeat that we hope it will be introduced in the next Session of Parliament.

Mr. Sheldon: And the staff?

Mr. Davies: The Commission numbers 17, and the staff just over 40. It is not a big organisation. My proposals might have the effect of doubling it.

Mr. Crouch: May I draw attention to the advantage afforded to my right hon. Friend and to the House by the work


of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries? I hope that my right hon. Friend did not imply any downgrading of the sort of work done by the Select Committees referred to by the hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer). May I ask whether my right hon. Friend is aware that sometimes these Select Committee Reports are not debated in this House? May I further point out that the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries has decided in its future session to look into the relationship between certain of the major nationalised industries and their impingement on the public interest?

Mr. Davies: I certainly have no intention whatever of downgrading in any sense the work of the Select Committees—quite the opposite. Questions about the work of the Select Committees and debates in the House which might ensue are really matters for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.

Mr. Marsh: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree that a lot of the talk about monopoly in the public sector is based on pure prejudice? Will he interpret the words "competition in the relevant market" very widely in the public sector and recognise that, for example, the market for steel is international where there is plenty of competition, and the market in the fuel industry is a market between different fuels, some in the private sector and some in the public sector?

Mr. Davies: I fully recognise that many of the nationalised industries face stiff competition from outside and within. Some of the actions of the former Government did nothing to improve that competition.

Mr. Gorst: Can my right hon. Friend say whether he expects his proposal will make it possible for these areas of the nationalised industries which are not developing or taking an active part in marketing some of the technological products which they have at their disposal, to be investigated by the Monopolies Commission to enable private firms to develop what the monopoly prevents?

Mr. Davies: If any issues arise within the field of imperfect competition, which

is the definition of the word which I have perceived for this Commission, they can be looked at.

Mr. Russell Johnston: In welcoming any intention of the Minister to widen the scope and powers of the Monopolies Commission, may I assume that he would look back critically on the fact that, during the fabled 13 years, out of some 23 references to the Monopolies Commission, the previous Conservative Government acted on only three? May I hope that he will be firmer? Specifically, on the restrictive trade practices legislation which he intends to review, does he have it in mind to take trade unions within its operation and to make across-the-board wage increases subject to the Restrictive Trade Practices Court to see whether or not they are in the public interest?

Mr. Davies: Among that variety of subjects, I am of course open, in this experience-gaining period, to very much discussion and consultation. The actual enlargement of the work of the Commission to which I have referred will not embrace, in the interim period at least, these latter issues to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.

Mr. Benn: In view of the very large number of points which have been put, would the right hon. Gentleman look again at the question of producing a White Paper or a Green Paper to allow the House to debate these issues, because, as he said, these are fundamental changes which he has introduced? I think that he would agree that there should be an opportunity for the House to consider the policy before the Bill is produced. May we also have a figure on whether the £5 million asset limit for merger references still applies?

Mr. Davies: On the last point, the £5 million assset limit will apply for the present, but I am further considering this matter. As for a Green Paper, it is difficult for me, in all fairness, to undertake to do this. I wish to use the ensuing months as a period of experience and experiment in this widening field. It is in the light of this experience and experiment that consultations and discussions emerge, not in the light of an arrested position on what is at the moment a conjectural basis.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

Mr. Stewart-Smith: With permission of the House, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a personal statement. With regard to the request by the hon. Member for Derby, South (Mr. Walter Johnson) on 15th December that I should correct an error in my remarks concerning Mr. W. Hartington and his dispute with the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, I should like to say that I inadvertently misled the House by saying that he was thrown out of his job, whereas I should have said that he was threatened with being thrown out of his job. I deeply apologise for the error.

Mr. Walter Johnson: May I thank the hon. Member for that statement, which I am sure is in the best traditions of the House?

BILLS PRESENTED

SHERIFF COURTS (SCOTLAND)

Mr. Secretary Campbell, supported by the Lord Advocate and Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith, presented a Bill to amend the law with respect to sheriff courts in Scotland, and for purposes connected therewith: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read

a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 81.]

INDUSTRY

Mr. Secretary Davies, supported by Sir John Eden, Mr. Frederick Corfield, Mr. Maurice Macmillan, Mr. Nicholas Ridley, and Mr. David Howell, presented a Bill to repeal the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation Act, 1966 and dissolve the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation; to terminate the power to make industrial investment schemes under the Industrial Expansion Act, 1968 otherwise than for the purpose of revoking or varying any such scheme made before the passing of this Act; and for purposes connected with those matters: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 80.]

POWER OF ATTORNEY

Mr. Martin McLaren presented a Bill to make new provision in relation to powers of attorney and the delegation by trustees of their trusts, powers and discretions: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 22nd January and to be printed. [Bill 82.]

Orders of the Day — MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN

EMERGENCY POWERS (PROCLAMATION)

Mr. SPEAKER reported Her Majesty's Message, as follows:

Her Majesty, by Proclamation dated 12th December, 1970, having declared that the industrial dispute affecting persons employed in the electricity supply industry did, in Her opinion, constitute a state of emergency within the meaning of the Emergency Powers Act 1920, as amended by the Emergency Powers Act 1964;

And it having appeared to Her Majesty that the state of emergency has now ceased to exist: Her Majesty has deemed it proper, by Proclamation dated 17th December, 1970. to proclaim that the said Proclamation of 12th December is revoked.

Ordered,
That Her Majesty's Most Gracious Message be now considered.—[Mr. Maudling.]

Message considered accordingly.

Resolved,
That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, thanking Her Majesty for Her Most Gracious Message and for Her Most Gracious Message of 14th December.—[Mr. Maudling.]

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

Order read for consideration of Her Majesty's Message [14th December, 1970].

Ordered,
That the said Order be discharged.—[Mr. Speed.]

Orders of the Day — ST. VINCENT (GIFT OF A PARLIAMENTARY LIBRARY)

Ordered,
That Sir John Rodgers and Mr. William Hamling have leave of absence to present on behalf of this House a Parliamentary Library to the House of Assembly of St. Vincent.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

Orders of the Day — MAURITIUS (GIFT OF A MACE)

Ordered,
That Mr. Bernard Braine and Mr. Ernest Perry have leave of absence to present on behalf of this House a Mace to the Legislative Assembly of Mauritius.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]

ATOMIC ENERGY AUTHORITY BILL

4.26 p.m.

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Industry (Sir John Eden): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This Bill is substantially the same as that introduced into another place earlier this year by the previous Government. It is concerned with the commercial production activities of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. The Bill makes provision for the transfer of the assets and liabilities of the Authority's Trading Fund to two Companies to be set up under the Companies Acts—British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. and The Radiochemical Centre Ltd.
The idea of transferring the fuel production activities of the Authority to a company is no new one. The Select Committee on Science and Technology in its report for the Session 1966–67 recommended that a new British nuclear fuel supply and manufacturing company should be established. Subsequently the previous Government introduced a Bill for this purpose. It received general support from all parties but lapsed on the dissolution of Parliament. It now falls to the Government to reintroduce the measure in substantially the same form. I am sure, therefore, that, in proposing to hive off these particular activities from a public agency to a more commercially-orientated structure, the Government can count on the support of the whole House.
I propose in this short speech to touch on the reasons for introducing the Bill; then to describe its main provisions and the differences between some of the provisions and those in the previous Bill; then to explain the financial effects of the Bill and finally to make clear the Government's policy on participation of other companies in the shareholding of the two companies.
When the Atomic Energy Authority was set up in 1954 one of its objectives was the application of nuclear power to the economic generation of electricity. Plants to produce nuclear materials for the defence programme had already been established and it was appropriate to use these same plants, and to extend some


of them, to produce the fuel elements required for nuclear power stations. By 1965 this civil business had become large enough to warrant the setting up, within the Authority itself, of a Trading Fund. This enabled the business to be run in accordance with financial arrangements similar to those of other public and private industries, separate from the Authority's research and development and other functions.
Comparing the first financial year of the Trading Fund, 1965–66, with 1969–70, the value of sales of nuclear fuel services has grown from £19½ million to £30 million and the value of sales of radioisotopes from £2·3 million to £4 million. The proportion of total sales represented by exports was 9 per cent. in 1965–66 and 15 per cent. in 1969–70. The current financial objectives set for the Trading Fund cover the three-year period from 1st April, 1968, to 31st March, 1971. The targets have been met for the two completed years, the main target being a minimum rate of return of 13 per cent. on capital employed in respect of nuclear fuel services.
As regards the future, it is clear that the domestic and world market for nuclear fuel elements and fuel services is bound to grow at a rapid rate. The Atomic Energy Authority estimates that annual world demand for nuclear fuel, now approaching £200 million, will increase to £1,000 million or more by 1980.
The Authority has already shown great technical and marketing enterprise in securing a growing share of this overseas business. In 1968–69, overseas orders worth some £11½ million were won and the export order book now stands at over £20 million. Particular success has been achieved in breaking into the United States market for conversion of uranium ore into uranium hexafluoride—the starting point for the enrichment process—despite the handicap of trans-Atlantic transportation costs. Contracts have been obtained against international competition to supply fuel to an American-built reactor in Holland, to reprocess fuel from American-designed reactors located at various places in Europe and to provide nuclear fuel services in other parts of the world.
The Radiochemical Centre at Amersham provides an essential service to all

users of radioactive isotopes. Its business is on a smaller scale than that of nuclear fuel services but it is no less successful. The products of the Centre are required in fundamental research in the life sciences; in radiotherapy and new methods of diagnoses in medicine. In industry they are widely employed in processing and testing. Since it was established in 1946, the Centre has had a continuous record of growth and profitability. It sells over half its output abroad.
These two success stories add up to a very considerable achievement for the Trading Fund. It is this very success which makes me so confident of their ability not only to hold their own against any competition but also to increase their share of these growing markets. But they will be greatly assisted in this if they are run by ordinary companies set up under the Companies Acts with the normal commercial freedom to raise capital and to enter into international partnerships. Neither company will be accorded any statutory monopoly, but, of course, in setting them up, the Government envisage that the companies will be successful in retaining the present pre-eminent position of the Fuel Production Group and the Radiochemical Centre in their respective lines of business.
Before turning to the main provisions of the Bill, I should make clear that the setting up of the companies does not by itself entail any further modification of the Atomic Energy Authority. The remaining part of the Authority, comprising the Research, Reactor and Weapons Groups, will still be of sufficient size to make it a viable body. Nevertheless the Government are giving thought to the longer term future of the Authority.
The main purpose of the Bill is the transfer of the relevant activities of the Atomic Energy Authority as an on-going business to the two companies. The companies will be set up under the Companies Acts and, consequently, the Bill does not need to provide for their structure and organisation. The companies will be registered before the appointed day on which the transfer is to take place. But this will not be done until each House of Parliament has considered the Bill in Committee. The draft Memoranda and Articles of the companies have been placed in the Library. Hon. Members will


see from a study of these that they follow the usual form of such documents. Two points about them may be of interest. First, the objects of the companies have been framed widely enough to avoid any artificial restriction on the employment of their assets to the best advantage. Second, the Articles provide for the majority shareholder to retain control over the issue and transfer of shares and over disposal of any substantial part of either company's undertaking or assets.
Each company will issue shares to the Authority in consideration of the transfer taking account of the difference in value between assets and liabilities. I shall refer later to the question of valuation.
The establishments to be transferred to British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. are Spring-fields, Capenhurst, Chapelcross and the Windscale and Calder Works. At Spring-fields, uranium is extracted from ore and converted to a form suitable for enrichment in the plant at Capenhurst. Springfields is also the centre for manufacture of fuel elements from both natural and enriched uranium. At Windscale, used fuel elements are processed to extract plutonium and other useable byproducts. The power stations at Chapelcross and Calder Hall generate electricity for the national grid but are also capable of being used in the production of special types of plutonium and the experimental irradiation of fuel elements.
The Authority will retain the exclusive use of its research and development laboratories at Springfields and Wind-scale.
The Authority's Radiochemical Centre at Amersham will be transferred to The Radiochemical Centre Ltd. together with certain activities and facilities belonging to the Centre at Harwell.
Although the companies will be set up under the Companies Acts in the normal way, they will be subject to certain special limitations or safeguards by means of some of the provisions in the Bill.
Clause 11 provides for the retention of a majority public shareholding in the companies. Hon. Members may be aware that, when the previous Bill was considered in another place, the then Opposion secured the deletion of the subsection providing for majority control. But, frankly, it is clear that there are strong grounds for ensuring that in the foresee-

able future, there shall be a majority public shareholding. In arriving at this judgment, we have in mind chiefly the strategic importance of the fuel company.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: The Minister referred to the exclusive use that the Authority would retain in relation to Windscale. It occurs to me that that is rather an odd way of putting it, but perhaps I have misunderstood him.

Sir J. Eden: I was referring to the research facilities there. The Authority will retain the use of those research facilities. The facilities themselves will be used, although the land on which they exist will be transferred as part of the assets to be transferred. The choice of phraseology was to identify the facilities. Perhaps I might ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to look further into this matter with a view to meeting the hon. Gentleman's point with greater elucidation towards the end of the debate.

Mr. Dalyell: It was simply the use of the word "exclusive" that puzzled me.

Sir J. Eden: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point. These research and development laboratories are currently used by the Authority. The use of these facilities will not be transferred. But I will ask my hon. Friend to follow this through more closely for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman and the House.
Clause 11(3), which was the provision that was removed from the previous Bill, has been restored, but in a slightly different and more straightforward form.
The Bill provides for the public shareholding in the companies to be held initially by the Authority. It also contains a provision permitting the Secretary of State at any time to transfer the controlling interest to himself. The decision to do this would be taken later, bearing in mind that the remainder of the Authority will be primarily a research and development organisation. But it will also depend on the timing and scale of private participation in the shareholding of the companies.
A further limitation on the nuclear fuel company arises from the fact that the company will be handling, and in fact generating, information of a particularly sensitive nature. In the absence of special provision, this information will be outside the scope of the Official Secrets Acts


as matters now stand. The Bill therefore provides for the application of a schedule of special security provisions very similar to those to which the Atomic Energy Authority is subject.
As the law now stands, only the Atomic Energy Authority may carry out enrichment of uranium or reprocessing of nuclear fuel elements for a purpose other than research and development—that is, as a production business. The Bill therefore provides, in Clause 17, for an appropriate amendment to the Nuclear Installations Act, 1965, to enable the fuel company, or other bodies, to carry on such business, subject to licensing and safety controls.
This amendment is also required before the United Kingdom can ratify the Agreement with the Netherlands and Germany for collaboration in the development and exploitation of the gas centrifuge process for enriching uranium. Hon. Members will doubtless recall that this Agreement, which owed a great deal to the encouragement given to it by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) was signed in March of this year by the previous Government. The Agreement provides for collaboration, by means of two international companies, in the designing, building and operation of centrifuge plant. Initially, capacity is to be established in the Netherlands and also in this country.
I am sure that in considering the Bill hon. Members will have particular interest in the Clauses dealing with the terms and conditions for the staff on transfer. Particular safeguards concern the staff who will be transferred with their work from the Authority to the companies. For purely practical reasons it is just not possible to allow staff the option to stay with the Authority. The Government therefore share the view of the previous Government that the provisions of the Bill must go to considerable lengths to protect their legitimate interests.
The provisions in the present Bill are unchanged from those which were in the previous Bill. They lay an obligation on the companies to seek the co-operation of staff representatives in setting up machinery for negotiation of new terms and conditions of service. They lay down that those terms and conditions must conform to the principle that they are, taken as a

whole, as favourable to the staff as the terms and conditions enjoyed in the employment of the Authority. They also provide for arbitration on the question whether this principle is adhered to.
The Bill also provides for the staff to remain members of the Authority's superannuation scheme until the companies have introduced schemes of their own. The companies' schemes are to be, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, no less favourable, taken as a whole, than those of the Authority at the time.

Mr. Dalyell: We have all heard from the Institution of Professional Civil Servants that it sees no need to add to the number of superannuation schemes in the nuclear industry as a whole; and that it hopes that the Minister may yet be persuaded to reconder his decision. Can the Minister tell us at some length why this view has been rejected?

Sir J. Eden: That is a matter which can properly be pursued later in our consideration of the Bill, but I am sure that it is right that the companies should set up their own pension schemes. I am equally certain that the reference I have made to the need of the Secretary of State to satisfy himself that these schemes shall be no less favourable than those already in operation will fully safeguard the interests of the staff concerned. The Government believe that these provisions, together with the enhanced opportunities for expansion which the companies will enjoy, will constitute effective safeguards for the staff.
Before turning to the respects in which the Bill differs from its predecessor, I should like to say something about the retention of one Clause—Clause 16—

Mr. Stanley Cohen: The Minister has referred to the setting up of new machinery for consultation and negotiation. Is he able now to say when such machinery is likely to be established and to be effective?

Sir J. Eden: I said that provision is made for the setting up of machinery for negotiation of the new terms and conditions of service, and this will have to be done as it affects the transfer of the staff. Provision is made for members of the staff to remain members of the existing superannuation scheme until


something comparable has been set up within the companies themselves. This aspect, therefore, is covered by the procedure I have outlined.
Before I deal with some of the respects in which the Bill differs from its predecessor, I should say something about the retention of Clause 16 on the treatment of the transferred assets for the purpose of investment grants. In the light of the Government's decision to terminate investment grants the Clause now ensures no loss of investment grants on transferred assets where expenditure relates to assets for which contracts were made by the Authority on or before 26th October 1970. Whether the wording of the Clause is quite appropriate for this purpose cannot be completely determined until the Government have got further with the drafting of the legislative provisions to terminate investment grants. It may therefore be necessary later to table a Government Amendment.
The other differences between the Bill and its predecessor can be briefly summarised. First, there was in the previous Bill a Clause which provided for payment of grants to British Nuclear Fuels Limited instead of investment grants to international companies set up under the Tripartite Gas Centrifuge Agreement. It has been excluded. This is an automatic consequence of the decision to end investment grants.

Mr. Dirk Douglas: If I recall correctly, Article 3(3) of the Treaty contains a specific pledge to consult the Joint Committee set up by the Tripartite Agreement in relation to any economic changes affecting the operation of the Agreement. Did the Government consult the Joint Committee before they changed the method of investment incentive?

Sir J. Eden: This is a matter of investment incentives affecting the position of British Nuclear Fuels Limited, the company to be set up, and as such this ultimately will undoubtedly have an effect on the consideration to be given to the development of the gas centrifuge proposals.

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn: My hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas) is pointing out that, as the Minister will

know, there was a lot of negotiation with our Dutch and German partners about the extent to which investment grants were to be taken into account in the financing of the different parts of the Agreement. What my hon. Friend is asking, as I understand, is whether the change in respect of investment grants and the new arrangements proposed in the Bill were the subject of international negotiations in order to be sure that they were covered by the arrangements we have reached before.

Sir J. Eden: The changes the Government have decided to make were not the subject of discussion internationally. The changes, of course, had been proposed by the Government and have an impact on this operation, and it is that aspect which is the subject of international discussion.
The second change is that the limits set in Clause 13 for the aggregate of Government loans to, and new share purchases from, the fuel companies are lower than those set out in the previous Bill. The reason for this is the expectation that the company will be able to raise a significant amount of its capital requirements from the private sector.
Third, a new Clause—Clause 18—has been included to ensure that in the interests of security the present arrangements whereby the Factory Inspectorate rather than local authority inspectors exercise statutory functions of inspection at A.E.A. establishments will continue at sites transferred to the fuel company where classified work is carried on. The same arrangements will apply to any such site owned by a company set up in pursuance of the Tripartite Gas Centrifuge Agreement.
The fourth difference is that a new clause—Clause 19—has been introduced to ensure that the United Kingdom can implement the Security Annex to the Gas Centrifuge Agreement with the Netherlands and Germany signed by the previous Government in March this year. The Clause will permit certain of the security provisions of the Schedule to the Bill to be applied to any international company registered in the United Kingdom and established pursuant to the Centrifuge Agreement.
I think that it might be helpful to the House if I were now to say a word or


two about the financial effects of the Bill. These are set out in the Financial and Explanatory Memorandum, and require only a brief further explanation. Reference is made in the Memorandum to the two-way trade in goods and services between the trading fund side of the Authority and the rest of the Authority. This amounts to about £6 million annually each way and covers, for example, purchase from the trading fund of fuel elements and components for the Authority's reactor research and development programme and, in the reverse direction, the undertaking by the Authority of research and development for the trading fund.
Once the companies have been set up, trade between them and the Authority will no longer be at cost, but will include a profit element—in either direction. Because the pattern of trade is weighted in favour of the trading fund, this new element will increase the net payment by the Authority to the companies. Further more, although there will be savings to the Authority from discontinuance of certain services for the trading fund, it is not expected that they will match the loss of revenue. Overall, therefore, the Authority estimates that there will be an increase in its net expenditure of about £600,000 a year.
The estimate of not more than £100,000 that might be paid by the Secretary of State to the fuel company in reimbursement of the cost of complying with security directions under paragraph 5 of the Schedule of the Bill is additional to charges that will be borne by the Ministry of Defence in connection with any work on the defence account.

Mr. John Biffen: As a result of the recasting of the finances under the two proposed companies, and taking into account the adjustment that my hon. Friend has mentioned, will it be possible for the House to know what has been the return on capital employed by the assets which will be allocated between these companies, not merely for the latest available year, but going back over the previous three or four years?

Sir J. Eden: Yes. The Bill provides for presentation to the House of the accounts of the trading companies. This information is already available for past

years because the trading fund has been operating on a commercial basis, and accounts have been published separately. They show a successful return on capital employed. I think I am right in saying that for the year 1969–70 it was about 23 per cent.
I come, now, to say something about the Government's thinking about private participation in the two companies. The Select Committee on Science and Technology, in its recommendation in 1967, envisaged that whilst the industrial heart of the proposed fuel company would be provided by the Atomic Energy Authority, other companies should be invited to join. The previous Government endorsed this by expressing the hope that suitable firms in private industry, able to offer relevant expertise, would choose to take up shareholdings.
The Government believe that private industry has an important contribution to make to the continued success and future expansion of the nuclear fuel business. We favour private participation from an early date—preferably from the outset—provided, of course, that we can reach satisfactory agreements on the terms and on the price of shares. In conjunction with the Atomic Energy Authority the Government propose to commission a merchant bank to advise on the problems of valuation and capital structure and to identify prospective participants. The Government will wish to satisfy themselves that whatever the formula to be adopted it will be related not only to the past performance of the Trading Fund, but also to the future profitability of the fuel company. I shall shortly be discussing the terms of reference for this operation with the merchant bank.

Mr. Bruce Millan: Will the terms of reference be made public?

Sir J. Eden: I shall consider that. This is of great interest to the House, and it is the Government's wish to ensure that in discharging the responsibility in this way they are seen to be acting in the best interests of the whole House and of public investment. I shall take into account what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Mr. Douglas: The task which the hon. Gentleman is to give to the private merchant bank was within the orbit, and,


indeed, was a direct function of, the I.R.C. which his Government have destroyed.

Sir J. Eden: I am not proposing anything substantially different from what was considered by the previous Government, and it was said by Lord Delacourt-Smith when he introduced the Bill in another place that this was the sort of procedure which would have to be followed, and that the Government would be taking outside expert advice on this matter by people properly qualified to give it. I think that that is the right way to deal with it. We shall follow this course here and a similar course in regard to the Radiochemical Company.
The Government, or to begin with the Authority acting on their behalf, will retain majority shareholdings in both companies. The shareholders will appoint the directors, and the Government, either through the Authority or directly, will thus have a choice in the composition of the boards. It is our intention that, in accordance with normal company practice, the boards should manage their affairs in the interests of the companies and the shareholders. Accordingly, the Government will expect the companies to aim at securing a fully economic return on their capital, bearing in mind that they will have to operate in competitive markets.
Finally, I propose to say something about timing. There is a broad measure of agreement between the Government and the Opposition on the need for this Measure and on the desirability of setting up the proposed companies as soon as possible. About three years have elapsed since the recommendation made by the Select Committee on Science and Technology in 1967.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: I am sure the Minister appreciated that when the Select Committee started its investigation we were told then that reorganisation was urgent.

Sir J. Eden: I understand the hon. Gentleman's point. The Government have pressed ahead as fast as they could with this matter. There is also an urgent need to secure early amendment of the Nuclear Installations Act, 1965 so that the United Kingdom can ratify the Gas Centrifuge Agreement with the Netherlands and Germany. The Netherlands

and German Governments are already on the point of ratifying the agreement. Since interim arrangements under the agreement expire in early March, one year after its signature, it is clearly desirable that the United Kingdom should be able to ratify the agreement before March of next year. I hope, therefore, that it may be possible to secure early passage of the Bill. If that can be done, then the Government will be able to set up the companies in time for them to commence trading from 1st April of next year.
In commending the Bill to the House I should like to end by paying tribute to all those in the Atomic Energy Authority through whose efforts and enterprise in the past the future success of these two companies is assured.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn: It is a happy thought that I can begin by warmly endorsing what the Minister said about the work of the Atomic Energy Authority. No one who has been involved in these matters, as I was before him and as others have been before me, can fail to be impressed by the quality of the men and women who have worked in the Authority over the years. Whatever else we may want to say on this Bill we must recognise that we are building a new firm, almost a new industry, upon the skills of the people who have worked in the A.E.A. and before that in the Ministry of Supply.
After the clashes that have taken place in the House over the last few days and weeks, to be able to congratulate the Government wholeheartedly upon the introduction of this Bill is a very pleasant duty. I was watching the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen) as the Minister introduced the Bill. I hope that he noticed what was being presented. It was a Bill to establish two new mixed-enterprise companies, one for nuclear fuel and one for radio chemicals, both with 100 per cent. Government holdings at the start and both with a statutory Government majority for all time, reversing an Amendment passed in the other place by the Conservative peers who were referred to rather amusingly as the "then Opposition". I liked that very much, talking about one's own colleagues as the "then Opposition". This Bill entirely implements the pledge in the Labour manifesto of 1964 which I will


read to the House in the Christmas spirit. It says:
A Labour Government will—
Go beyond research and development and establish new industries, either by public enterprise or in partnership with private industry.
To have the present Government implementing the Labour pledge of 1964 is very pleasing to me.
In explaining the background to the Bill the hon. Gentleman was rather shy about describing to the House the kind of negotiation that has gone on and no doubt is going on and which has to go on, between Government, industry, scientists and engineers and the public research establishments, the trade unions and other countries to get an operation of this kind off the ground. Although we shall have detailed points to raise in Committee, in supporting the Bill tonight I should like to give some of the background so that at any rate for the Opposition I can perform some function in throwing a light upon how these operations are conducted.
I should like to take the three main streams of policy that have culminated in the publication of the Bill. The first takes us right back to the origins of the Atomic Energy Authority. The nuclear research of this country is a product of war-time need. It was a defence operation. In 1955 when the A.E.A. was set up out of the Ministry of Supply we had the beginnings of the civil programme to which the Minister referred. The A.E.A. was hived off from the Ministry of Supply. Looking back, it was probably a mistake to hive off so much policy making, and the Select Committee under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) drew attention to the weakness of government in the area of policy.
At any rate, into the hands of the A.E.A. were transferred considerable responsibilities. The work that it has done has been in discharge of those responsibilities. At the time the view of government—and this was two or three governments ago—was that science policy was something that had to be handled very much at arms length, through the Lord President of the Council. That was the way that science touched government, in very much an indirect way, and there was no active in-

dustrial policy pursued at that time to see that, when the research that was done came to fruition, it could be positively applied and made the basis of an export marketing effort.
When the old Ministry of Technology was formed six years ago—and to this extent its functions have remained within the new Department of Trade and Industry—for the first time the research and industrial policy were brought together into one Ministry under one Minister. When the Ministry of Power was added to that, all the three ingredients in this problem came under the same Minister. The Minister's speech to-day links with the work done in converting a number of consortia—there were three in 1966—and the British Nuclear Executive into the present pattern of nuclear design and construction companies.
The House knows that although we have achieved remarkable feats in nuclear research and in our domestic nuclear programme, we have been notably unsuccessful in selling our reactors abroad. When in the summer of 1966 one of the nuclear consortia came to my Department and asked for money from the Government to support it in a bid, I declined to provide that support and instead began to work on the reorganisation of the nuclear industry and set in hand a re-examination of the industry. I must tell the House, although it probably knows it already, that my initial view was the same as the view of the Committee which sat later, that we should have a single design and construction company, partly because the volume of business at home would not be sufficient to sustain two companies and also because of the very stern competition that the British design and construction companies would face in foreign markets.
Therefore, early in 1967 we met the consortia. They were very hostile to the idea of any sort of inquiry, saying that it would create great uncertainty, and they pleaded with us to keep secret the fact that the meeting had occurred, although a full account appeared in the Sunday papers—but not my account. This was just at the time that the Select Committee began its work. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central, who did a very close study, drew evidence from many people in industry and Government. I gave evidence. The Committee came up with a very firm recommendation, first bearing


on the fuel company which is the subject of this debate and, secondly, recommending that a single design and construction company should be established.
I am glad that the present Government have reappointed the Select Committee on Science and Technology because I believe it to have been a notable innovation in the conduct of affairs of the House, and I should like to pay a sincere tribute to the Committee for the work that it did, not only in this but in other areas.
When the Committee had made its report it was open to us to call in the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation to see whether the recommendation could be implemented. Although the hon. Gentleman brushed aside the I.R.C. rather hastily when he was asked about it, the truth is that it would not have been possible to bring about the two consortia that he is recommending to the House if the I.R.C. had not been available. It is astonishing—and I do not want to make a controversial speech just before Christmas because we are all so cheerful and happy and the Bill is a good one; it is ours—that hon. and right hon. Gentlemen can still maintain their weekend speeches and come forward with a Bill based upon a structure that they have begun to destroy in terms of the machinery which brought it about.
With the I.R.C. we had an industrialist working, not a political supporter of ours. Frank Kearton has very candidly always admitted his Conservative loyalties and subscriptions. [Laughter.] He is an independent person certainly, but no supporter of ours in the sense of political allegiance. He is a scientist, an industrialist, a member of the Atomic Energy Authority, a member of the Advisory Council on Technology, Chairman of the I.R.C., and Chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Industrial Expansion Act, about which I want to say a word later.
He was the man who enabled I.R.C. to go to the consortia and try to see how far it was possible to implement the recommendations of the Select Committee. I said it in the Rolls-Royce debate and I say it again: if Government are to get into this industrial policy area, that is the place where the industrialists should work, not as a substitute for a Permanent Secretary, tucked

away in No. 10 Downing Street. Sir Frank Kearton was fully backed by the staff of I.R.C. He set up a further inquiry to see how far this could be implemented. It was not possible to bring about what we wanted and what the Select Committee wanted originally. The fact is that these design and construction companies did a wider range of business than simply nuclear power and therefore they could not be looked at simply as part of the nuclear industry. They were not absolutely dependent on the Atomic Energy Authority designs, although they obviously wanted to make them work if access were made available for them.
So we went for two rather than one, and it was, again, through the work of the I.R.C. that the exceptionally difficult negotiations necessary to bring about the two consortia took place. I say "difficult" because some of the consortia were faced with loss-making operations which they had undertaken in the past. It was a matter not just of bringing about mergers but of dealing with some extremely difficult company situations. The I.R.C. did it, and without the I.R.C. it could not have been done. In the process something else happened: the I.R.C. took a holding in the two consortia and so did the Atomic Energy Authority. Thus we had the beginnings of the mixed-enterprise ownership pattern which is embodied in the Bill. Nobody has said it was wrong then, and nobody has said, not even the Minister, that it is wrong now. Of course it is not wrong in an area in which publicly-financed research figures very highly and is applied in industry. The mixed-enterprise arrangement was right.
Not only that, but there were long and exceptionally difficult negotiations with the staff. Some of the staff moved out of the Atomic Energy Authority to the private consortia. Why did they do that? Why did that happen? Because the consortia anticipated that an expansion of effort required staff, and the Atomic Energy Authority, having discharged part, at any rate, of its role to create the technology, was not expecting to require as many people as it had had in the past. Many people moved in this way into a mixed-enterprise arrangement.
This new Bill provides for the fuel company, as I understand, to acquire


shares in the consortia with the A.E.A., which will have a holding of shares in the first instance. And we get a treble interest—the interest of the Government, the interest of the Atomic Energy Authority, in its ownership in the first instance of 100 per cent. of the fuel company, and some holding by the private consortia. This is quite right. This is essentially because, of course, the design of the fuel element is the whole heart of the nuclear business, and with cross-representation we want to have co-ordination; and, of course, we need to remember that it is in the fuel business that the money lies far more than in the sale of the hardware itself—just as, in my life, having been a life-long smoker, I have contributed far more money to the tobacco manufacturers than to the pipe manufacturers. It is the same position with the nuclear business.
The consortia being established, we then had the opportunity to have discussions with the new consortia on how the policy would work, and on the developments. I mention this because it will obviously happen again with the fuel company in terms of the relationship between the Government and this type of mixed-enterprise operation. I will tell the House about the way we did it, because it is of some public interest.
We invited both consortia to come separately and to meet not only myself and my own principal officials but representatives of the Ministry of Power, and also there were brought in the Treasury, the Board of Trade, the Export Credit Guarantee Department and the Foreign Office, all looking together to see how it was possible to develop and expand the export business. This export business has considerable relationship to export credits. We had to try to think our way into the future through the eyes of companies, this joint planning was really important.
I get a bit fed up reading articles about Japan Incorporated as though M.I.T.I. in Tokyo were the only department in the world creating co-operation between Government and industry. The truth is that, without any of the political overtones of Great Britain Limited, we can do and did do a great deal of it ourselves. The Government today have to sit down with

private industry and with mixed-enterprise firms and plan ahead the expansion of our marketing overseas. That is what the right hon. Gentleman's Department ought to be doing. I do not know whether it is doing it, because it is contrary to all the philosophy pumped out that Government and industry are separate—that unions and managements are separate. I do not believe that we can run modern society on that sort of philosophy.
At any rate, that was the first stream, stream No. 1, industrial restructuring. Next we come to stream No. 2, which culminates in this Bill, and that is the development of the new technology of the enrichment of uranium first by the diffusion process, and largely linked with that is the high enrichment for weapons purposes. In 1965, I think I am right in saying—it is hard to remember everything—we announced Capenhurst stage two, linking with the development of the A.G.R. programme.
But in parallel with the enrichment by the gas diffusion process came the work on the centrifuge itself. The work was very complex, involving development of high skills in mechanical engineering rather than nuclear techniques. Doctor Zippe is recognised worldwide as the father of centrifuge technology. Born in Germany, he went to Russia and to America and then he returned to Germany. The centrifuge technique developed within the A.E.A. was cheaper than the gas diffusion system. It could be built up on a modular basis, but it had certain dangerous aspects, and it was feared that it might make for greater proliferation of nuclear weapons. This work was therefore conducted with great secrecy.
It was about this time that the proposal was made about the smelters. This was a parallel story which I must bring into my account because it is an exceptionally interesting one—the idea that smelters might be provided in the United Kingdom with comparable powers costs to those abroad by linking it with the advanced gas-cooled reactor, necessary to provide power for stage two at Capenhurst. This project was under consideration in the summer of 1966 when centrifuge was coming forward. In the event, it was not done by using A.G.Rs. because the centrifuge was to replace diffusion for


enrichment. It was done under the Industrial Expansion Act, and that Act, like the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation Act, has been abandoned by the Conservative Party.
Here was a great import saving venture under the Industrial Expansion Act programme which was made possible in large measure by our legislation which has now been knocked out. I say this in parenthesis because it was an element in the story which led up to the links the Dutch and the Germans had begun. As the House will appreciate, centrifuge work in the early days was carried out with exceptional secrecy because the Government had experience enriching uranium by the diffusion process and when we decided to shift to the centrifuge process, it revealed that that was the better method and bearing in mind what had been done and with the experience of centrifuge, it was thought better that we should be doing it with the Dutch and the Germans and that we should cooperate together. The French were at work at Pierrelatte, hoping to provide enriched uranium to Europe by the diffusion process from there. We made an approach to the Dutch and the Germans and brought about the tripartite arrangement.
If the House will bear with me for one moment, here is another lesson to be learned from the very nature of mixed Government and industrial enterprise. By this tripartite agreement we developed a totally new type of international agreement and co-operation unlike E.L.D.O. We got together and signed an agreement for a new international company to be set up with a long-term programme. The real value of this is that it is an international company working together with a number of companies and bringing together the German and Dutch Governments and the British Government, bringing together the A.E.A., and now the new nuclear fuel company which is to be brought about by this Bill, and bringing in private firms both in Holland and Germany. This was based upon a huge market; the figure given to me was the one the Ministers quoted, £1,000 million by 1980. We planned a tapering subsidy to transfer the research costs progressively to the new company. As Dutch and German firms were involved we had one

reason for having private enterprise brought in as well.
I make no apology for this. I profoundly believe that this is an enormously expanding business and involves more than just the A.E.A. capability, because there is here a big trading capacity, and technique, from which British firms do not wish to be shut out. They will be competing with Dutch and German firms, and we want them to be moving into the market. So I think that this was right.
Now we come to the Bill before the House. I did not want to talk, as it were, by giving my memoirs, but there is, I think, a little more flesh and blood, as I think the House will agree, in the account that I have given than there was in the rather skeletal description given by the Minister.
Under the tripartite agreement each nation will own a majority holding in the enrichment plant in its own country, with the minority being held by the three partners together, so that at Almelo and Capenhurst there will be provision for a genuine international operation to work. I believe that this makes sense. It is an international company; it is European; it is mixed enterprise; it is Government; it is industry; it has been negotiated with the unions, and it brings science in on it. It makes sense—and it is utterly incompatible with everything that has been said publicly by the Conservative Party.
I make no more of that. It is obviously right to maintain the Government majority holding. In the House of Lords before the election, in the heady atmosphere when peers were preparing to defend their seats—a thing that worries them immensely—they passed an Amendment which would have taken away the Government majority holding. The technology is so sensitive and the staff requirements are so important—and for many other reasons—that it is obviously right that it should be Government-controlled. In that respect, the Minister has fairly recognised the virtues of what had been originally proposed.
I have described three streams of thinking and action that went into the Bill. But there is one great blank. We have heard nothing, other than the phrase "the Government are giving thought to


the future of the Atomic Energy Authority". I look at the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave), who has been a member of the Committee and has a great interest in the matter, and has always shown a great interest in the staff of the A.E.A. I wonder how he felt—I wonder how my hon. Friends felt—when they heard the phrase about "giving thought to the future of the Atomic Energy Authority".

Mr. Dalyell: What does it mean?

Mr. Bean: Perhaps my hon. Friend will be fortunate enough to catch Mr. Speaker's eye later.
We could not deal with the future of the Atomic Energy Authority until we had dealt with all the things that I have been describing—until we had dealt with the consortia; until we had dealt with the radio-chemical function; until we had dealt with the production group and until we had brought Aldermaston back into the Government arena as part of the recognition of its particular defence function. Having got to the point that we reached 12 months ago—to the point where this question becomes acutely pressing for the staff—it is disgraceful for the Minister to say no more than that he was "giving thought", when the Green Paper was published in January, and not with major political disagreement in the House. There was some criticism from outside, in the professional associations. There was some highly intelligent criticism of the Green Paper. All that is known to the Minister.
I think that Green Papers should lead to the provision of Pink Papers, which would tell us what the public thinks about the Green Papers. Many comments came in after the publication of the Green Paper. Some of them were critical, but they were immensely helpful. If the House had available to it all the information that we got from those who wrote in about the Green Paper we should be a little nearer to the solution of the problem.
I am utterly convinced that other than in the field of academic science—which never concerned me because it was the responsibility of the Department of Education and Science—technical research and technological work of the kind done in the A.E.A. and the D.S.I.R., sponsored

by the N.R.D.C., must be orientated on the basis of need. If that principle had been followed, far from frightening the staff they would have been encouraged to see the relevance of their work.
Secondly, we must bring the Atomic policy back into the ministerial domain. We must create an Atomic Energy Board where all the interests in atomic energy policy can be focused together, bringing in industry, the research people and the power generating people themselves. I greatly regret the fact that six months after they came to office, and having known about the thinking of the previous Government—because the Green Paper was published; it was not a private document—there should have been not one indication of what the present Government intend to do about the Atomic Energy Authority. We had a deathly hush, followers by the classic, immortal phrase, ''The Government are giving thought to the future of the Atomic Energy Authority". That was said only a few months after we were told about the computers at the Conservative Central Office having their policies geared for immediate implementation. None could have been easier than this, because of the thinking that had been made public.
The staff are entitled to know about this, and it is a question on which the hon. Member who is to wind up the debate must say more than that he is "thinking"—because Oppositions think and Governments do things. That is a relationship that we should not forget.
What I have tried to describe is the background to the Bill. I believe that it is the best solution. My hon. Friends and others who are keenly interested in the matter will want to deal with problems of valuation and capitalisation. But staff matters are of supreme importance—such as conditions, wages, assurances that can be given, superannuation arrangements, problems of safety, which was partly dealt with by the Minister, and the interchangeability problems that will arise in connection with the new company and the old A.E.A. They are matters that I hope he will discuss with the staff. I made it my business to do this. I met the staff associations which must not be regarded as being of less than supreme importance. We are not talking about hardware; we are talking about people and their skills.
There are lessons to be learned. One is that we must link research with identifiable needs; another is that the structure of application is much more difficult and in many ways more important than the research that goes into the initial work. If we had learnt that many years ago—and I am not making a party political point—we should all have done better. Research must serve some need—industrial, military, or communal. We cannot make sense of any of these decisions unless Government, management, the unions, and scientists are brought together in partnership. We have had a lot of philosophy put forward by the Government since they came into office. I am in favour of Governments having a philosophy, but if the philosophy of the Conservative Party is the philosophy of scientific apartheid, where the two sides live separately and meet only when it is necessary and where there is no idea of partnership. I condemn it, because I believe that without partnership we cannot make this Bill work.
I know that the Secretary of State and his colleagues are active in developing and applying this philosophy, and I regret that they are demobilising the instrument by which modern Government can interact intelligently with industry and science, when the future of our society depends on our being at least as modern as the French, the Americans, the Japanese and the Swedes. Since in this case, however, they have been able to bring forward a Bill based upon the instruments that we gave them, I commend it most warmly to the House.

5.28 p.m.

Mr. Airey Neave: I am glad to be able to follow the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) because I have always supported the operation contained in the Bill. He made a number of provocative remarks to which I shall refer but I must first declare a financial interest in the Nuclear Power Group and in a boiler company which has a shareholding in the group, and also a large constituency interest, in that many of my constituents are employees of the Authority. I shall naturally wish to raise a number of staff matters.
The right hon. Gentleman castigated the Government for not having decided the long-term future of the Atomic Energy Authority in six months. He will be

aware that after many years he produced a Green Paper which was demolished by many scientists and which did not contain proposals that found acceptance in any quarter that I know of with regard to the future of the A.E.A., because it proposed to lock it up in a monolithic structure known as the B.R.D.C. We are not supposed to be discussing that in the context of the Bill, but I hope that hon. Members opposite will not make any further points about this Government's having taken too long.
The hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) will remember that in the Select Committee we often prodded the right hon. Gentleman and his Department to produce this Bill, in view of the recommendation of the Select Committee that there should be a nuclear fuel company. It does not lie with him to say that the delays are on this side of the House. There were considerable delays in his time.
However, I do not want to spoil the Christmas spirit, in view of what the right hon. Gentleman said in other directions, but I thought I should make that point, even if it sounds a little waspish. It is to the right hon. Gentleman's credit that he prepared the ground for the Bill, and I know something of the negotiations which took place. It is quite clear that nuclear fuel will be very important and very big business in the near future. This is one of the reasons for the Bill and one of the reasons that one wants to know a great deal about the implications of it.
One of the things which I welcome, which is being demonstrated by this Bill, and also by what the Minister said, is that the Atomic Energy Authority has for some time being a thriving commercial enterprise on the production side. I join in the congratulations to its Production Group on its excellent work, particularly in fuel and radio isotopes. It is certainly not the remote body that it has been made out to be in some quarters and on which I have commented in the last Parliament. It is certainly not divorced from industry and commercial practice. For any organisation to have as big an increase as 22·5 per cent, in its export orders is something on which it should be congratulated.
Since these matters are reported in the 1969–70 Report of the Authority, I ask what will happen about the new contracts


for fuel which it has with Japan, with Germany and Switzerland? Will they be taken over by the new company? If so, in what circumstances? I assume that the new company will acquire the shares which the Authority has in the Italian nuclear fuel company, Combustibili Nucleari, which is an important point in view of the European links of the Authority. My hon. Friend has rightly described these as success stories and they form a very good basis for the new companies.
Not much has been said about the Radiochemical Centre. This has a close connection with Harwell, and is based at Amersham. It had an exceptional year's trading last year and its increase in sales was up 60 per cent, in exports. That is a remarkable record. I have noticed the way in which they exercise quality control. I am sure that this will be followed in the new radiochemical company. I know of the work that they have been doing with the isotope production unit at Harwell and I assume that those links will remain the same as they were. As I say, they are sound foundations for the future. They have excellent staff with which to carry out the work of those companies in this fast-growing industry with a considerable export potential.
These companies will, of course, with this very considerable growth, be able to make commercial decisions. This is not to say that the previous organisations could not or did not make commercial decisions. They certainly did. There has been a lot of misunderstanding about this, but I think that the structure is better for the future with the growth potential.
I think that it is absolutely right that the Government should have a majority shareholding. Although it may not be for all time, and these things may have to be reviewed in the light of private investment, this is absolutely the right structure at the moment—although my hon. Friend may tell us how far this question will apply to the Radiochemical Centre Ltd. as distinct from British Nuclear Fuels Limited. I was not clear from the Minister's speech about that.
I turn now to the staff effects. I have had a brief from the Institution of Professional Civil Servants, as has the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). They have supplied us, as usual, with

extremely valuable information. I understand that there are 3,700 non-industrial staff to be transferred, and 2,400 others. Therefore, future prospects of these companies, particularly the nuclear fuel company, are very important to them.
My hon. Friend discussed the terms of reference of future negotiations for these companies and said that we would bring in the merchant banks. This is a perfectly normal method and there should be no real dispute about it. The net surplus of the trading fund, of the Authority, it is said, is expected to continue. This flat statement does not mean much unless we look into the actual working of the new companies.
I want to know whether any forward estimate has been made of the profits and the dividend policies of the companies. It is important for the staff, who are very skilled people, to know what sort of company they will join. If the likely market is as high as £1,000 million by 1980, as the Minister said, what share will the nuclear fuel company and the radiochemical company get of that market? Has there been a forward guess in his Department on this matter?
We are dealing with some of the most brilliant people in the field of reprocessing nuclear fuel in the world and they are entitled to know what sort of company they are joining. While I wish the company well, these are relevant questions to us.
What study in regard to our present negotiations with the E.E.C. has been made, for example, about the economics of large-scale reprocessing nuclear fuel plant in Europe? This will be important because, were we to join Europe, we would want to know the effect on the economics of the new company.
Clause 13—this again is a financial question—says that the maximum contribution out of public funds is to be reduced in the case of the fuel company from £100 million to £75 million, without recourse to Parliament. After that, there has to be recourse to Parliament. What is the significance of this? Is it because part of the capital is to be obtained from the market? If so, that might be a perfectly sensible way of doing it.
A subject which concerns me a good deal and which I have discussed very often with Members of the Select Committee on Science and Technology and


with the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East when he was Minister, and with my hon. Friends, is the relationship between the authority in future—I assume that he will retain the Authority as a viable organisation: that is certainly my wish—and the design and construction companies in regard to this nuclear fuel company.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the A.E.A. shareholdings in those companies. At all times, I have been very much in favour of these shareholdings although I am connected with the private enterprise side of the industry, and they have proved to be very valuable to the design and construction companies.
I assume that these A.E.A. shareholdings will be transferred to the nuclear fuel company. If so, the Authority will continue with some of its R. and D. work on nuclear fuels and there will be a direct link. I would not like to see that link disappear by this transfer, and it is therefore to be hoped that some of these A.E.A. shareholdings will continue. This link is valuable to those of us who work in the industry on the private enterprise side.

Mr. Dalyell: Would the hon. Gentleman agree, from his great experience of this subject, that the problem of valuation is likely to prove extremely difficult, especially in the long-term?

Mr. Neave: I think so, although I am not equipped to answer that. It is obviously a matter which my right hon. Friend will wish to consider when examining the whole question of assets. I am dealing with the tricky point of the need to maintain the link of which I have spoken because most design work will now be outside the A.E.A., and that Authority will be the main research body for the industry.
The I.P.C.S. has told hon. Members of its suggestion—I put this forward as its suggestion rather than mine—that the total shareholding of A.E.A. in the design and construction companies should be divided between the nuclear fuel company and the A.E.A. I refer, of course, to the holding of the A.E.A. and the I.R.C. The suggestion is that that should be jointly held by the A.E.A. and the nuclear fuel companies, and I hope that a decision on this point will be taken shortly.
Under Clause 8 we see that no option is given to the staff to remain with the A.E.A. because, of course, they automatically become employees of the companies on the appointed day. This makes it necessary for the Government to give the firmest assurances about terms and conditions of service. I made this point to the Labour Party when they were in office, and if the principle enshrined in Clause 8 is accepted, the Government have a clear responsibility in this matter. The I.P.C.S. wrote to the Minister for Industry on 9th December asking for certain assurances on this point, and I hope that they will be forthcoming.
This brings me to the question of superannuation. I have been pressing Governments on this issue for some time because I envisaged the day when the Authority would be, certainly to some extent, separated from the fuel side and from the design and construction companies. I have maintained all along that there should be a system of interchange between the A.E.A. and the Companies. I am not sure how far this process of interchange is being effected by this Measure, but I trust that the need for it will be borne in mind.
It has been asked why there need be three different pension schemes. I, too, pose that question. We are here forming two companies and two schemes, in addition to the A.E.A.'s superannuation scheme. I could understand the need to set up different pension schemes if we were not concerned with the public service, but although this may not be the public service as such, I see no reason why this difference should exist. If there is a reason, may we be told it? I remind the House that the nuclear power group, which is primarily a private enterprise group, has amended its scheme to provide benefits comparable with those offered by the A.E.A. scheme. We did this when staff were transferred to us.
Clause 20 appears to say that the Secretary of State must have regard to this pensions aspect, and this denotes that the interchange of staff about which I spoke will be facilitated. However, it seems that the Authority does not envisage what one might call a "mid-career" transfer of staff from one employment to another.
I have always held that this type of interchange should exist, and I hope that the Government appreciate the need


for it. The I.P.C.S. has made this point, and as far back as the days of Frank Cousins I was pressing for a greater degree of interchange. We do not appear to have made much progress along these lines since then.
Clause 20(6) has a considerable bearing on the transfer of staff. It seems that the Science Research Council will not be able to apply the A.E.A. superannuation scheme to its new employees at the Culham laboratory. The subsection clearly says:
In addition to any person to whom any pension scheme maintained by the Authority is applicable apart from this subsection, any such scheme may also apply to any person employed by the Science Research Council who—
(a) immediately before 1st April 1969 was an employee of the Authority engaged in research … at the Authority's laboratory at Culham".
What happens after that—to the new employees of the Science Research Council at Culham? We do not want to pass legislation which will make it impossible for the Council to adopt as good a pension scheme as the A.E.A.'s scheme. This important point has been made strongly to me by the staff side of the Whitley Council at the Rutherford laboratory.
Is the Minister satisfied that he has taken account of the representations of the staff side about safety? There is a fear that with the creation of these companies—there seems to be no reason for this fear—there will be less of a contact with the A.E.A.'s health and safety branch, which keeps a watch on radiological safety. In view of the amount of responsibility that outside industry will have for these new projects, we should be told what safety arrangements are being made.
The I.P.C.S. has suggested that a new Clause should be introduced to make it necessary for the companies that we are setting up to consult the Authority's safety division. I am not sure that we need go that far, but certainly adequate assurances should be given by the Minister on this issue.
I welcome the Bill. I congratulate the Minister for Industry on the clear way in which he introduced it. I trust that he will remember that many people, in ad-

dition to hon. Members, require an early statement about the future of the Authority. We would also like a Green Paper to be published, though not the one which we were discussing six months ago. These matters are in the best interests of what has been a most successful career from the point of view of the Authority's Production Group.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: As the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) said, the Select Committee on Science and Technology in the last Parliament, to which kind references have been made in the debate, devoted a great deal of time and thought to the nuclear power industry. There were a number of reasons for that, but I shall content myself with giving three. First, the industry is a vast spender of public money. When we were carrying through our investigation as a Select Committee, we asked for an estimate of how much public money had been spent from the beginning on nuclear energy development for civil purposes. Tucked away in the Report somewhere there is an estimate given. I cannot give the exact figure—it is not altogether relevant anyhow—but it is awe-inspiring in its extent.
Second, we had a strong instinct throughout our investigations that the United Kingdom must keep ahead of the times in the further development of complex technologies. This is not just an economic question to be measured by the return on invested capital; it is a human question as well. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that we can treat scientists and engineers as interchangeable units who will work just as happily on water softeners or electric typewriters as they will on reactors or in aerospace. If they cannot do what they want to do and what they have been trained for and are interested in, they will move, perhaps, to other countries or pass too early in life into more profitable management jobs. Therefore, in looking closely at the progress of this advanced technology, we thought that, in the long run, we were probably helping the country's general industrial future.
The third reason has already been mentioned in the debate, that it was common ground at the end of 1966 that changes in the organisation of the nuclear industry were urgently necessary. My right hon.


Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) told us at that time, nearly four years ago, that he was on the verge of making recommendations and that our views as a Select Committee, since we had given notice that we were to investigate this subject, should be brought forward without delay in order to assist him. We produced the first Report to the House by the end of 1967. One of our major recommendations which is now taken up in the Bill, was that there should be an independent nuclear fuel company. We made no recommendation on radiochemicals, so I shall not deal with that.
Nearly four years have passed, and, at last, legislative action is being taken. Looking back, one cannot help thinking that, in the end, it has turned out to be a very leisurely reorganisation in practice. I am not apportioning blame. It might have been due to the difficulties of placating and consulting all the interests concerned but it is a bad delay nevertheless.
It will be said that the sale of nuclear fuel is going on anyhow, and that it is an established branch of the Atomic Energy Authority's business. That is true, but delay has the unfortunate consequence, to which the hon. Member for Abingdon referred, that it is demoralising for the staff when they know that a change is to come but not when it will come. That anxiety is always there. It is unsettling, bad for morale, and does not help in the slightest.
The Institution of Professional Civil Servants gave us a great deal of useful evidence, to that effect, as can be seen in the Select Committee's Report. I am, therefore, glad that the Government have decided to wipe out the consequences of the Amendment made to the earlier Bill in the other place and to give once again a majority shareholding to the Atomic Energy Authority. That is important because, since the staff have to come from the Atomic Energy Authority, it will give them confidence as to their future, as they can feel that their previous employers are still in command of the situation.
The Select Committee was so concerned about the leisurely way in which the reorganisation was being carried through that it decided, perhaps to speed things up, to conduct a second inquiry. On the pace of the reorganisation, we said this in 1969:

The Minister declared over twelve months ago his intention of introducing legislation to establish a fuel company in place of the Authority's present fuel business. A Bill has not yet appeared but much depends on speedy action.
We went on to give a number of reasons why that speedy action was essential and I am sure we were right.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East was most helpful in the evidence which he gave to the Select Committee at every stage, and most helpful in the memoranda and documents which were placed before the Committee, and I pay tribute to him. I was glad that he used again his illustration of the difference between nuclear fuel and nuclear reactors. I am a non-smoker. He is a notorious pipe smoker, which, on the whole, goes down rather well in Bristol. He used a similar illustration in his evidence to the Committee. He said—this is Question No. 955—
… just as tobacco manufacturers make more money than pipe manufacturers, probably there will be a very great export market in nuclear fuel.
Under questioning, he explained to the Committee a little later that he did not mean that it was still not important to export reactors, and I confess that that qualification was to our great relief. It is estimated now that by, say, 1980 there may be will be an international market for nuclear fuel to a figure of £1,000 million. It is, therefore, important that the new company should be fully ready to take the maximum advantage of that market. Nuclear energy for power production may be having its temporary setbacks in most industrial countries just now, but it will go ahead again in a big way in the long run, never fear.
It is never easy in this country in public utility circles for those responsible for the management, to break away from what I call the municipal engineer's outlook. This outlook always requires a cosy domestic market in which the purchaser decides the specification and prefers to have a choice among as many makers as possible so that he may obtain comparative tenders and reach a decision on purchase suitable to him. That may still be perfectly sound for many articles of equipment, but in nuclear fuel it is the international market and international standards of comparison which count, and this will be increasingly so if our


economic links with Europe become closer.
I think it excellent, therefore, that there is to be just one British nuclear fuel company. There is no nonsense here about the need for competition in the domestic market so that one can make a choice between one type or style of nuclear fuel and another. There is to be one nuclear fuel company because it is correctly recognised that the true competition here is international competition.
I still think it a pity that a similar line of reasoning was not followed in regard to the principal recommendation of the Select Committee, to which my right hon. Friend has already referred, that there should be one British design and construction company for reactors which would have developed its own international subsidiaries not just for fuel but for the main product itself, the reactor. It would have been dominated, the Select Committee proposed, by the Atomic Energy Authority, but, again as we suggested, private capital would have been welcomed as a component.
My right hon. Friend rejected that suggestion, in spite of the weight of opinion in its favour. As he knows, there were some eminent people in the industry—Lord Penney was one—who were in favour of the single design and construction company.

Mr. Benn: I think that the word "rejected" slightly misrepresents what happened. What I told the House—my hon. Friend knows this—is that I personally wanted it before the Committee recommended it, but, on examination, I found it not to be practicable. Whether that constitutes rejection may be an interesting question of semantics.

Mr. Palmer: I often read what my right hon. Friend said on the subject before he was the Minister. The trouble was that he converted me but he did not in the end convert himself when Minister. If "rejected" is too strong, I am sorry, but I think that that is what it came to when he had to make a decision as Minister.
Instead, it was agreed with the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation and the three previous consortia that the industry

should, so to speak, be reduced to two new groupings, with some small extra injection—20 per cent, in each case, I think—of public capital from the Atomic Energy Authority. I am still open to conviction that that compromise was satisfactory, but, if one looks at the number of overseas orders for reactors, one can only say that the export trade is still making very slow progress. In spite of the initial advance which we had in this technology, we are not selling reactors abroad in the way we should, and there seems to be a great deal of muddle and confusion about who is the selling authority for British reactors.
On this issue, my right hon. Friend and I had a little exchange in the columns of that volatile political journal, the New Statesman. He said then—he said much the same again today—that the Select Committee's solution was unworkable. I thing that that was the work which he used. I very much doubt that. I think that what stood in the way was the business interests of the companies concerned in other fields. They had many other things to do and many other heavy engineering products to sell.
I think that my right hon. Friend and I differ a little on the question of inter-ventionism, and I should put the matter in this way. The real trouble was that his Department had become so much involved in details and in the restructuring of private companies that he had lost that independence as a Minister which was necessary for action by the State.

Mr. Benn: I must intervene again, because that is a serious charge to make. What powers would it have been open to me to use to bring about a merger between companies which were independent, short of introducing legislation to take into public ownership all the companies I wished to join? My hon. Friend has often made that point, but he has never told me by what powers such a solution could have been implemented, and he ought to explain now.

Mr. Palmer: The Select Committee suggested that, in the long run, it could be done on the basis of voluntary co-operation—that is true—but I think personally that in the end it would have meant legislation.

Mr. Benn: To nationalise all of them?

Mr. Palmer: To bring their relevant business into public ownership probably.

Mr. Benn: All the companies?

Mr. Palmer: That is one of the difficulties of course. I hold strongly the view that, if a Minister takes interventionism beyond a certain point, becoming greatly involved and committed to the fortunes of the companies concerned, in such circumstances he is bound to lose that independence and impartiality which the State must always retain if it is to take action in the public interest. That was the fundamental difficulty here.

Mr. Benn: A moment ago, my hon. Friend was urging me to bring all three into one by voluntary co-operation. That would have involved a degree of intervention going far beyond what was necessary to bring three into two. He has now said for the first time—I have never heard him say it before—that he thinks that the whole of the industry should have been brought into public ownership, if necessary, to create the single design and construction company, and that would have included—for the industry was not concerned just with nuclear power—the whole manufacture of electric plant and all the plant and equipment for conventional power stations as well. This is a striking advance in his own policy thinking, and I feel that my hon. Friend ought to tell the House more about it.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman should address the Chair. It helps the reporters to hear.

Mr. Benn: You were in my mind, Mr. Speaker, though my face was elsewhere.

Mr. Palmer: This is a Second Reading debate, and we can discuss matters widely, but we have to do so in accordance with the rules of the House. I said that the Select Committee—I want to be precise about the Select Committee—did not suggest legislation because we hoped there that it could be brought about by voluntary co-operation. I would prefer that but I would not shrink from legislation. I am putting forward the perfectly reasonable suggestion that the method now being used of a legislative Measure to bring about the fuel companies could also have been used for the amalgamation of the reactor interests into one group.

Mr. Neave: Will the hon. Gentleman make it quite clear that the Select Committee of which we were both members never advocated public ownership in this case at all but did advocate a joint organisation of private and public enterprise?

Mr. Palmer: That is a perfectly fair comment. I have said already that the Select Committee thought that this could be brought about on a basis of voluntary co-operation of public and private enterprise assisted and inspired by the Ministry. At no stage could we have obtained the general assent of the members of the Select Committee had we suggested any expansion of the frontiers of public ownership. I simply say that if legislation had been introduced later involving an expansion of public ownership I would not have gone against it in order to obtain the single design and manufacturing company.
However, this is now all in the past, and we have here a Bill which takes a very sensible step forward. A Bill for an independent nuclear fuel company had the advocacy of the Select Committee of which I had the privilege to be Chairman, and I wish the Bill and its outcome all success.

6.11 p.m.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I had intended to make some remarks on the structure of the industry, but things have been so much better put by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) that on the general issue I have only three questions to ask of the Minister.
The Minister stated that by 1980 fuel services would be reaching a value of about £1,000 million. This is a very interesting statistic and I should like to know something of the basis on which it is calculated, because it may go to some extent to settling the worries expressed in the I.P.C.S. document we have all had.
The second issue has already been referred to by the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave), to whom we listen with great care on these matters: it is the whole difficulty of valuation. If the Government come forward with what we hope


are thought out proposals at least they will have some clear idea of the criteria on which valuation is to be made. All of us who are interested in the subject know that it is extremely difficult to carry out any kind of valuation, and we want to know precisely how the Government think it is to be done.
The third general issue that concerns me a little is the Minister's reference to commercial freedom to raise capital. I do not make too much of a party issue of it at the moment, but I do wonder precisely what it involves. Does it mean that the companies can ask certain favoured merchant bankers to raise capital in the City, or am I completely wrong in supposing that it might be very difficult to raise on a commercial basis capital in the quantities needed for what is necessarily seen by the City as something pretty speculative?
Before I quite bluntly argue the case that has been given to us all by the I.P.C.S., I want to ask about procedure. I understood the Leader of the House to say during business today that the remaining stages of the Bill will be taken on the first Friday after the Christmas Recess. I am not of a disposition to offer any kind of threat about talking for a long time on that Friday, but I must tell the Ministers that our speeches will be shorter if we get answers to some of the questions raised this afternoon. Whether the Bill is given them early or whether it takes a long time depends, I say it in all humility, on whether the Government Front Bench is prepared to meet the very real worries of live people who work in the industry as well as dealing with the technical issues that have been raised this afternoon.
Since this is what we might call a working day in Parliament, when we are making speeches for a limited number of people working in the industry rather than speeches designed to have great public effect outside, I make no apology for going through with some care the document which the Ministry and those of us who have been interested in the subject for a long time have had given to us by the I.P.C.S.
Paragraph 5 of the document refers to
(i) the likely market during the next 5–10 years.

I should be grateful to be told something of the likely size of the market.
The document then refers in the same paragraph to
(ii) the share the new companies can expect to obtain;
(iii) the implications for the size and character of its staff.
On that issue we would welcome any information that can be given, at least before the Committee stage.
Paragraph 6 states:
The Institution also notes that the new Bill differs from the previous Bill in that the maximum contribution of capital out of public funds which can be authorised without further legislation has been reduced, in the case of the Fuel Company, from £100 million to £75 million. Presumably this is because it is now expected that the company will raise part of any capital it needs from the market and other non-Government sources. The staff would therefore welcome a statement from the Government as to the significance of this provision and the likely timetable for the introduction of private capital into the company.
The question of a timetable is quite important—

Mr. Neave: The hon. Gentleman said that the raising of capital would appear to be rather a speculative matter. If the estimates of growth of this potential market are right—going up to £1,000 million by 1980—it could be a case where private capital could be quite easily raised.

Mr. Dalyell: If there is success, yes, but given the stale of the capital market and its fluctuations I am just expressing some slight doubt whether we can have the certainty of success. If private capital is not forthcoming, and it is a possibility, what happens? It is in this context that I become extremely concerned about the Minister's throwaway phrase, quoted by my right hon. Friend: "The Government is giving thought to the long term future of the Authority."
I cannot believe that such a statement was spatchcocked into the Minister's speech just for the fun of it. Ministers do not make statements like that just for fun. I interpret it as an important statement made after due consideration. We therefore ask what it means. I may say that the Minister will find some of us very awkward indeed unless we get a full explanation of this sentence. If it does not worry the hon. Gentleman it certainly will wory a great many people who work in the Authority.
Since the Minister made that statement I have not been able to get in touch with the I.P.C.S. but my guess is that the Institution, and other unions involved, will take that statement very seriously. My right hon. Friend's question should be answered later in the debate and we should be told precisely what those words mean. I confess that I would be very shocked if no comment was made on it because that would mean that the wording was terribly ill thought out.
I have to say to the Minister that I am slightly concerned at his inability—I know that he has many other things to do—to answer questions put to him during the course of his speech, because to come forward with proposals like these presupposes that they been thought out by the Minister and the Department. Therefore, we deserve the answers fairly soon.
Paragraph 8 of the document contains this passage:
There is a need for the Authority, as the organisation which will continue to undertake research and development on nuclear reactors and nuclear fuels, to have a direct link with the design and construction companies They must all work closely together to maintain and extend an integrated programme from reactor research and development to production and sales. The two companies have already expressed their appreciation of the value of the U.K.A.E.A. shareholding in the evidence they gave to the Select Committee on Science and Technology in 1969",
as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) will remember.
This direct linkage cannot be retained with anything like"—
this is the important part—
the same effect if the U.K.A.E.A. loses its entire shareholding in the two companies".
I am not saying that I agree with that piece of evidence, but it is a substantial point which I do not think was answered in the Minister's speech. Here again, the Minister who winds up should tell us what the Government's view is.
Paragraph 9 of the document says this:
The safeguards which have been written into the Bill relate only to the initial negotiations on terms and conditions in the companies. They are ambiguous in relation to the interim period whilst new agreements are being negotiated, and silent as to the longer term intentions. The Staff Side has therefore written to the Minister of State asking for certain supplementary assurances and a copy of this letter
was sent to all concerned.
I again return to the Minister's phrase, which I must harp on—that the Govern-

ment are to give thought to the long-term future of the authority. If our fears on this kind of thing are to be dispelled, it is obligatory for the Minister to say exactly what is meant by that phrase.
Paragraph 12 of the document concerns pension schemes. This point has already been raised by the hon. Member for Abingdon. From talking, not only to the I.P.C.S., but to people whom we have all met and who work in different establishments, one knows that there is considerable difficulty and worry on this score. Having been for 2½ years P.P.S. to a pensioner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), and having perforce had to learn a lot about pension schemes which I did not know before, I cannot understand why there is any reason why the Government should not stick to the A.E.A. pension scheme, especially as—the hon. Gentleman pointed this out—it was worked out by mutual consent with considerable satisfaction in the case of the T.N.P.G.
If the Government are to get our good will—I am not threatening; I am merely saying this—in getting their Measure through quickly, I should have thought that this was the sort of point on which they could say, "Yes, it can be done. We will give you that"; because, as the Minister knows, in this kind of argument everything is part of the package. Surely this is an element of the package which is certainly expendable from his point of view but rather important to those who work in the industry.
I wish it were possible to insert whole paragraphs into HANSARD so that Members did not have to make speeches which were too long. As we know, however, in our Parliament that is not possible. Therefore, I am bound to read paragraph 15 in full, so as to enable sense to be made of this passage of my speech if it is read outside.
Paragraph 15 reads:
It has become clear from the discussions which have already been held with Ministers that very little interchange of staff is envisaged between the Authority and the companies whether on secondment or on a permanent basis.
I would hope that that is not so.
The Authority itself is on record as saying: 'We frankly do not regard it as realistic to envisage that there would be a great deal of mid-career transfer from one employment to the other'. The most the Authority has been


persuaded to say is that the companies will be recommended by the present managements to accept the principle that if they can assist in resolving an Authority surplus by aiming to get the bulk of any additional staff they may need in the category concerned from the Authority while the surplus persists they should do so, subject to review of the arrangements after five years. This seems to the Institution to be an unnecessarily restrictive view and it hopes that the Government can yet be persuaded to recognise the desirability of the maximum interchange of staff both between the Authority and the companies and with the nuclear industry in general.
I suppose that on this matter of mobility of staff it is the question of pensions as much as anything which is important. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central will remember very well that on a visit that the Select Committee made to Windscale and Risley this point in various forms was emphasised time and again by different people to whom we talked. Paragraph 15 is very important.
The hon. Member for Abingdon stressed the safety aspect. Here again, I should have thought that the Government could have gone some way, on the matters raised in paragraph 18 onwards of the Memorandum, to meet what we are putting forward and perhaps to meet the requirements of the I.P.C.S.
I have spoken a great deal over the last few weeks and do not want to make another long speech. Can the Government tell us what their intentions are on the Friday when we return? They will find that a number of us are wholly co-operative if we think that the Government are co-operative on the points that we have put forward. Let us hope that at any rate some of the issues which have been raised can be settled before the Committee stage on the Friday on which we return.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Dick Douglas: It is very pleasant to take part in a debate in which so many knowledgeable right hon. and hon. Members have participated. I was particularly struck by the knowledge and experience of the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave), who distinguished himself as a former Member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology. Both sides of the House welcome his accession to the Chair of that Committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) is a former Chairman of that Committee. The work which that Committee has done indicates the value of the constitutional innovations made in recent Parliaments for the benefit of the House, the benefit of hon. Members, and the benefit of the community at large.
One can accept the general background of the Bill, which is the foraging but not at times too economically successful work of the Atomic Energy Authority and British industry since the establishment of the Authority in 1964. Both the Minister for Industry and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) have naturally—or perhaps unnaturally—reached a measure of agreement on certain provisions of the Bill. This is because there is a very close similarity between the Bill now before us and that which received its Second Reading in another place on 4th April.
I shall spend a little time examining the general strategy of the Bill before I come to one or two points of detail which I shall ask the Minister to examine.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East likened the Bill to a three-stage rocket. The first stage was the desirability of achieving general agreement on the basis of a consortium to be used for the construction and sales techniques of British nuclear reactors. Unfortunately, the first stage could not be a single stage in itself. It had in many ways an unfortunate take-off, in that we could not achieve a single company and had to resort to two companies to undertake this process.
However, I do not think that it was unnatural that the Select Committee, in examining this structure, should have used these words in paragraph 8 of its Report:
The process of reorganisation of the industry had produced two companies substantially little different in appearance from the two previous consortia.
There has been some disagreement in the House between the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East and the hon. Member for Bristol, Central on the basis of why this should take place. I have a certain sympathy with both points of view, and I declare an interest in this, having spent a considerable amount of time in the engineering industry. I have


considerable sympathy with the idea that there should be one consortium to take Britain's leadership into the actuality of sales and the construction of nuclear power plants abroad. I also have some sympathy with the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East in his view of the ramifications of the industry which would be needed to get together three types of organisation into a consortium. There would have to be an organisation capable of constructing boilers of the high temperature and high pressure necessary, an organisation capable of constructing the electrical engineering generating equipment, and an organisation capable of doing the public works construction. Although my preference is for one consortium, I can see difficulties, in forcing that to its ultimate conclusion, of achieving any measure of public ownership or public compulsion. I would not like to envisage the nature of the Bill which would be necessary to achieve that. We have made the best of a difficult job, and it remains to be seen whether British industry is capable of selling nuclear power stations of the next generation.
In an analysis of the association between private and public enterprises, I am not sure that we require an alteration in the mixture rather than clear and definite managerial leadership and control. This is what we are trying to set in stage 2, but I am not certain that this mixture of private and public ownership is the most desirable one.
On Second Reading of the Atomic Energy Authority Bill in 1954, the then Minister of Works said:
Already, the British investment is changing its character. The programme is becoming less like a laboratory and more like an industry.
In arguing for the particular type of organisation envisaged in that Bill he said:
It was then necessary to look for a form of organisation which combined the advantages of Parliamentary control with those of independent management."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st March, 1954; Vol. 524, c. 846–48.]
Having departed significantly in two stages from this form of organisation, will the Minister be more forthcoming than the Bill is about the nature of the parliamentary control? I recognise that some form of parliamentary control is envisaged in Clause 14, which requires the

accounts of the company to be laid before the House, but we require a little more than that. A large amount of public money is involved, and these organisations will play an important part in research and development, and sales of a fuel which will have such a large international market.
My second point is on the relationship between private and public funds, in a company which will initially be wholly publicly financed. It is a little surprising to see from the articles of association that both companies have 100 £1 shares. I know the technicalities involved, and we have to look at it in terms of market valuation, but what procedure does the Minister envisage to secure parliamentary oversight of the buying-in valuation of private industry? There is no account of that in the Bill. If private enterprise wants to participate in this company, as was thought desirable by people who examined the matter in detail, Parliament, knowing that the essential good will of the company has been almost entirely publicly created, has a right to know what procedures the Minister will adopt. He has mentioned the merchant bank, but he has not said what would be the requirements of stability of the companies who want to buy in.
I do not want to embarrass any company by mentioning names, but some companies which might be involved are already being substantially publicly sub-vented. Those companies might be using public money to buy shares in a public company, which strikes me as farcical, and I should like some clarification.
Clause 16 refers to investment grants under the Industrial Development Act 1966. If I understood the Minister aright, the Clause merely regularises the existing position. The Minister said that the Government might have second thoughts about the Clause and might redraft it in view of the changes in investment incentives. I apologise to the House for bringing forward again my point about the tripartite agreement, but that point is still valid. Article III (3) of the tripartite agreement states:
The contracting parties shall inform each other, through the Joint Committee of technical or economic developments which might affect significantly the commercial exploitation of the gas centrifuge process by the joint industrial enterprise.


Will the Ministry responsible discuss with the Joint Committee the changes in investment incentives, and the effect of those changes on the location of future plants? That is extremely important in relation to development area policy, and I should like clarification on that.
The third stage of the rocket which my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East envisaged in his Green Paper was the organisation for research and development in Government laboratories. Research and development is where the real break-throughs will take place. It is not good enough to leave areas like Dounreay in an indeterminate position. We have seen today's figures of 103,000 unemployed. The future of the prototype fast reactor and the research being done there cannot be subjected to fears about centralising all the foraging powers and the "sexy" aspects of sales techniques in these new companies. It cannot be left like that, because these people feel insecure.
It is early days for the Government and it might be a little unfair to press the point, but people in the far North of Scotland will be concerned about what has been said today. I ask the Government, in view of the uncertainties, to take urgent steps to clarify the position, if possible, before the Committee stage of the Bill.

6.40 p.m.

Mr. Bruce Millan: It has been made clear that the Bill is in a party sense, non-contentious. Basically it is the Bill which the Labour Government introduced, and for that reason we have welcomed it. However, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) made clear, it is only part of a number of steps which the previous Government had taken and were intending to take to deal with the Atomic Energy Authority's activities as a whole. Therefore, it was rather remiss of the Minister to confine his remarks so narrowly to the provisions of the Bill without setting the matter in its very much wider context. I do not see how one can understand the impact and implications of the Bill without setting it in this wider context. Therefore, the House is indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-

East for supplying, in such a fascinating and candid way, the background to the Bill which the Minister had failed to supply.
It would be presumptuous of me to go over the background to the Bill in the way in which my right hon. Friend did, but I wish to remind the House of three developments or potential developments at issue: the one dealt with in the Bill—the establishment of the nuclear fuel and radiochemical companies—the question of the design and construction companies, on which action had already been taken by my right hon. Friend, and the question of the future of the remainder of the Atomic Energy Authority on which a Green Paper was published by the previous Government and about which we have had no indication of the Government's thinking.
I should like to comment briefly on what my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) said on the question of the design and construction companies. The reply to my hon. Friend was very effectively made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East, because he explained very frankly the difficulties which he, starting with a prejudice towards a single design and construction company, found in practice in implementing the Select Committee's recommendation and the process by which he was brought to the solution which he propounded and which has now been implemented of two design and construction companies.
My reading of the Select Committee's Report and the subsequent debate on it in the House led me to think that there were no deep ideological divisions between the Labour and Conservative members of the Select Committee in making this recommendation. I had the impression that, although there was eventually what amounted to a party split on the matter, the balance between the recommendation for one design and construction company and the minority recommendation for two design and construction companies was quite fine, and it was really a question of approaching the problem, not from any ideological preconception, but simply from the point of view of the most effective solution to improve the effort of the industry, particularly in selling reactors overseas.

Mr. Neave: Will the hon. Gentleman make clear that the real question concerned who should do the reactor design—whether there should be competition in the design of the reactor?

Mr. Millan: That was another important issue. It is also relevant to point out that the Central Electricity Generating Board, as the sole purchaser in the United Kingdom, apart from the South of Scotland Electricity Board, was very anxious that there should be two design and construction companies.
One recommendation of the Select Committee which I thought was rather unrealistic was the corollary recommendation to the single design and construction company, that the C.E.G.B. would obviously be entitled to look abroad for subsequent nuclear power stations.

Mr. Palmer: My hon. Friend is quite right. The emphasis of the Select Committee, and certainly my emphasis, was that true competition is international competition and that international competition would apply within our own boundaries and outside.

Mr. Millan: I do not approach the idea of international competition within our own boundaries with a great deal of enthusiasm considering the vast amounts of public money spent on nuclear research and development in this country.
I do not wish to reopen that argument. I thought that I would simply comment on the Select Committee's Report and make the additional comment that, the decision having been made to have two design and construction companies, with the Government now operating with that decision, the important thing is to see whether we can make the two companies successful in the export field. We are entitled to some indication from the Government about how they view the prospects now that the two companies are working and what is happening concerning exports. That seems to me a much more important question than discussing again whether we should have one or two design and construction companies.
We all had very much in mind a number of considerations when we previously discussed the question of the design and construction companies. First, we had in mind the very large element of public expenditure by the Atomic Energy Authority and that the tremendous success

which it had achieved in many fields should be exploited to the fullest economic and industrial extent in this country and overseas. Secondly, we thought that the public should get some kind of commercial and industrial return on this very large element of public expenditure. Thirdly, recognising that the matter could be dealt with only as a partnership between public and private enterprise, we believed that the operation should be carried out on the basis of a contribution of effort and finance by public and private enterprise. The same kind of considerations apply when we are discussing the two companies to be set up under the Bill.
The background is however different in this sense. Whereas unfortunately we cannot say that we have had any conspicuous success, or indeed any success at all, in exporting plant over the last 10 or 12 years, the background to the export of nuclear fuel and radiochemicals is, in the Minister's words, a success story. In 1969–70 exports of fuel and isotopes amounted to £6·8 million compared with £3·8 million in 1968–69. The value of the contracts during 1969–70 was considerably higher than even the deliveries in that year. Therefore, these companies are starting on a very firm basis of successful operation by the Atomic Energy Authority over the last few years and we should recognise the tremendous efforts which the Authority has made in building up this very important business.
We are, however, very much more concerned with what the future holds in the world market as well as the home market and how successfully we can obtain a substantial share of that market.
The figures were given by the Minister today. I understand that by 1980 we expect the home market for nuclear fuel, for example, to go up about fourfold from £25 million to £100 million and that overseas we expect the figures to go up from something which he described as approaching £200 million to £1,000 million. There is a tremendous market and we really are concerned with establishing the proper kind of industrial and commercial arrangements which will be able to exploit that market to the full.
There are very strong arguments as to why the combination of public and private enterprise, decided upon by the last Government and confirmed by this


one, is the most effective way of producing the result we require. My right hon. Friend described the history of the centrifuge project and the various discussions which led up to the Dutch-German-United Kingdom agreement. There is no doubt that the projected combination of public and private enterprise in this country, which will marry and match with the projected combination of industrial and public enterprise in each of these other two countries, is much the most effective way of getting this kind of international co-operation off the ground.
There is the further consideration that many of the problems in the development of the centrifuge project are problems of engineering, and so on, which are not necessarily strictly relevant to many of the things which the Atomic Energy Authority has been doing over the years but where there is a good deal of experience in private industry in this country, which we should be drawing upon and which I think we can most effectively draw upon if private enterprise has a financial stake in the whole of the arrangement for the development of this project.
Then, of course, we have to have regard to what has already happened in the establishment of the design and construction companies. Once having accepted the principle there of a partnership between private and public enterprise, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that this is also the right kind of partnership for the nuclear fuel and radio-chemical industries as well.
Having said all this, I welcome the fact that the Government have been converted to the view that a majority holding should be held by public enterprise in these new companies. I think that this is absolutely inevitable in any case for security reasons, and I imagine that it was the security reasons which weighed most heavily with the Government in reversing an attitude which it seemed originally they would adopt. I feel that this proposition is absolutely right at present for commercial reasons as well. It safeguards, in a way which is important, the public participation at a significant level, and that is right in view of the way these developments have been financed by public enterprise over the

last fifteen or sixteen years. I would have found it objectionable on commercial grounds, as well as on security grounds, if the Government had not stuck to the Labour Government's Measure in this respect.
If we are to have private enterprise involved here, obviously it has to be attractive for it to come in, and I think that the record of the Atomic Energy Authority in these two activities over the last few years will make this a very attractive proposition. Indeed, the hon. Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave), from his own considerable personal experience of the industry, thinks that private enterprise will be only too willing to participate in these new projects, and this is something we are all glad to hear.
Since however this is potentially a very profitable industry, there is no case for putting the public assets into the new companies at anything other than a fair commercial valuation. The question of valuation is very important and is something that we shall have to get clarified, either tonight or at a later stage. Anyone who has read the remarks of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on the revaluation of assets at Windscale, in the Atomic Energy Authority's accounts for 1969–70, will have some appreciation of the very considerable difficulties involved. I do not wish, in a Second Reading debate, to go into this matter in detail, but there is an interesting passage in pages 109 to 111 of the Report by the Comptroller and Auditor-General on some revaluations of assets of the Authority which, it is not unfair to say, he was really rather doubtful about. I simply make the point that very difficult issues are involved.
Nor do I particularly wish to take up the question of how the professional advice should be obtained. This is something which the Labour Government might very well have looked at the Industrial Reorganisation Corporation for, and perhaps the I.R.C. itself would have taken outside professional advice. But as the Government are winding up the I.R.C, there is no point in my trying to argue that the I.R.C. should be doing its job.

Mr. Douglas: Does not my hon. Friend agree that if there is now to be discussion about valuation they should be publicly presented?

Mr. Millan: My hon. Friend is anticipating me. I am coming to that. I am not going to object personally to the proposition that a merchant bank should be called in for advice, although it does not strike me that a merchant bank by itself has any particular expertise in valuation of the assets of the Atomic Energy Authority. But I think this matter must be clarified. I am anxious, first, to establish the terms of reference on which the professional advisers, whoever they may be, are to operate; and, secondly, to know in detail the results of the study of the problem. In other words, it would not be suitable that we should simply be told that a merchant bank or other professional advisers had been asked to give advice on this difficult problem, that they had reached certain conclusions and that we should have no means of knowing how they reached them. I think we must be able to see how these advisers tackled the problem and what led them to their conclusions. This is very important, since very large sums of public money are involved, and we need assurances which I hope we shall get tonight. If we do not get them, we shall have to press this point very strongly.
I would also like a more elaborate and clearer explanation from the Government about why, in Clause 13, they have reduced the limit of payments by the Government to the new companies from, in the case of the nuclear fuel company, £70 million
… or such greater sum (not exceeding £100 million) …".
to £50 million
… or such greater sum (not exceeding £75 million) …".
The Minister said that this was because they expected private enterprise to be contributing at an early date. But I understand that the previous limit was put in by the Labour Government on exactly the same assumption—that private enterprise would be participating from an early date.
Comparing the Financial Memorandum to the Bill with that of the Labour Government's Bill—and this is rather remarkable—we find that the sums, contained in Clause 13 in each case, are described in exactly the same terms. They are based on the Government's estimate of what are likely to be the capital requirements of the companies for the

first five years after the transfers. The calculations seem to have been done on exactly the same basis, but they have produced considerable differences.
If the Government say that this is because they now confidently expect a substantially increased capital contribution from private industry as compared with what the situation was even six months ago, that will be a reasonable explanation, but before accepting it as reasonable we shall have to have the explanation elaborated, and one must have some confidence that that is the position and that this is not just another means of cutting down a public expenditure commitment, which the Government are anxious to do. I am not satisfied with the explanation which we have had so far and I hope that we will have a clearer explanation. Otherwise, this will be a matter which we shall have to press in Committee.
Another important matter, and it is not just a point of detail, because so many people are involved, is the dissatisfaction of the staff, particularly as represented by the Institution of Professional Civil Servants, with the present Bill. I have some sympathy with the Government in this respect, because they have clearly basically repeated the provisions of the Labour Government's Bill. I would not necessarily object in principle to the Bill's provisions, but it is not only the principle of what might be written in the Bill, but whether the Government can successfully persuade the staff that behind the Bill there is a firm guarantee on the various matters which have concerned the staff so much. Clearly, whatever the Government may have done in this respect over the last few months, and some attempt has clearly been made, they have not persuaded the staff that their interests are satisfactorily met by the Bill as drafted.
I shall not attempt to go over the controversial issues, because that has already been admirably done by the hon. Member for Abingdon and my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). I simply say that many people are involved, nearly 10,000 employees altogether, including about 3,500 non-industrial staff. They are being compulsorily transferred and there is an obligation on all of us to see that, so


far as we can, we satisfy their legitimate interests, suspicions and doubts before our proceedings on the Bill are completed. We attach considerable importance to this and we need clearer explanations than we have had so far.
My own feeling is that some of the apprehension of the I.P.C.S. comes not just from the Bill, but from the uncertainty about the long-term future of the Atomic Energy Authority as it will be once the new companies are established. This makes it all the more important to have a clear statement from the Government about how they intend Government research and development establishments, particularly the A.E.A., to be dealt with organisationally and in other ways in the years to come. This is becoming increasingly urgent and I am sure that lack of a clear lead from the Government has much to do with staff dissatisfaction with the Bill.
There are a number of other detailed issues which may be raised at rather greater length in Committee. For example, I am interested in the investment grants, a subject raised by my hon. Friend the Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas). I was very much concerned with what my hon. Friend said about the development areas. I remind the Government that the Green Paper on Research and Development which the Labour Government published at the beginning of the year included a pledge that whatever happened to research and development establishments the Government would have very much in mind the need to see that a satisfactory proportion of the effort put into this was made in development areas.
I shall not discuss in any detail the problem at Dounreay, for example, which I mention because I have a Scottish interest, but which is illustrative of the general problem. The Government should recognise that in this difficult period, when the long-term future of the A.E.A. has not been settled and there is no clear guidance from the Government as to what its future may be, these apprehensions and worries are very important. It is necessary for the Government to do everything possible to assuage the worries of the areas concerned, particularly where there are special difficulties from staff apprehensions or development area policy.
I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance. I do not wish to make the development area position a matter of contention between us, because I hope that the Government attach as much importance to it as the Labour Government did, although the unemployment figures do not make me confident that the Government are fully seized of the considerable difficulties of the development areas. However, that is something which I shall be delighted to expand upon in another context.
We have to have something from the Government about some of the issues raised by the Green Paper published in January, 1970. There may be legitimate differences of opinion about the Labour Government's Green Paper solution. My right hon. Friend expected legitimate differences of opinion when the Green Paper was published. The whole purpose of publishing was to stimulate discussion without getting the Government into a posture of absolute commitment to a particular solution to difficult problems, but rather to allow those who, by background and experience and professional outside interests, had points of view to express to do so. The intention was that the Government might subsequently reach a solution which was a distillation not only of Government wisdom—and we all know that Governments, particularly the present Government, do not have a monopoly of wisdom—but that of interested outside bodies.
Whatever feelings might be about the solution of the Green Paper, there was widespread acceptance of its aims. Paragraph 26, for example, said that three of the basic purposes of the Government in publishing the Green Paper were the need to rationalise programmes in the Atomic Energy Authority and Ministry of Technology establishments, the need to link Government laboratories more closely with industry so that they could better understand and more readily help to solve some of its problems, and the need for work to be undertaken increasingly on a contractual and commercial basis. There was widespread acceptance that these were legitimate aims for the Government to follow. There is also widespread acceptance that we are not very successful in meeting any of these aims at present.
Whatever the view may be about the particular solutions in the Green Paper it is now becoming increasingly urgent that we have changes in policy and organisation which will more effectively help us to meet these aims, clearly stated in the Green Paper. I am not asking, as the hon. Member for Abingdon somewhat unfairly suggested my right hon. Friend was asking, for a cut and dried solution from the Government tonight. This is not necessarily the most appropriate occasion to give us any conclusive views on these difficult problems. We are entitled however to some indication as to how the Government's mind is working on this issue or even on how they hope to tackle these important matters, for example by the publication of a pink paper or some other kind of Government document, letting everyone see the reactions by interested outside parties, most of them constructive, many critical, so that we would know not only what the Government felt the issues to be but what those outside felt.
All of us would then have some firm basis on which to make up our minds about the problems. I do ask that, if the Government are not willing to take us into their confidence about their thinking and I would like to think that they are thinking about these matters they would at least give us a commitment tonight that this kind of information will be made available to the House and the country generally so that we can all see what are the issues and more effectively judge whatever the Government's ultimate solutions might be. We need this broader context. We need to consider these broader issues before we can fully appreciate the background to the Bill and the purpose which it sets out to achieve and the prospects it has of achieving that purpose.
Having said all of this, and I hope encouraged the Government to be a little more forthcoming on some of these wider issues, I repeat that we very much welcome the fact that the Government have brought this Bill forward at an early stage. We shall certainly, as far as we can, give the Bill an easy passage. In slightly different terms I must however repeat the words used by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian and point out that whether the Government get this Bill as quickly as they obviously want

it and as quickly as we would like them to get it, will depend very much upon how satisfactorily they are able to give us the answers to the various points raised in the debate and to those likely to be raised in Committee. I hope that they will be able to give us some satisfaction. Again I repeat we welcome the Bill.

7.14 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): I want to start by acknowledging the debt that the House owes to the Select Committee on Science and Technology which published a Report, which it has been said in all quarters of the House, was exemplary. The hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Palmer) can feel some sense of paternity in what is going on. I would also like to add my congratulations to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) over the choice of the Chairman of that Commitee. It would also be right to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) for the part that he played in the negotiations leading to this Bill and the coming to fruition of the gas centrifuge project.
I cannot quite say that about the long piece of background which was put into his speech. He fought again the old battles, armed with the sword of the I.R.C. and the buckler of the Industrial Expansion Act—the instruments of intervention. This is ground which we shall tread again on the Industry Bill which had its First Reading today. I was amused when I heard him having to defend himself strongly against his hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central, explaining why he had been totally unable to achieve one nuclear construction company. Despite the powerful weapon of the I.R.C. and the Industrial Expansion Act, his Bill was frustrated.

Mr. Benn: We did it by consent; we did everything by consent.

Mr. Ridley: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) asked me how I viewed the prospects of this company. I would be wrong to be drawn on such matters. The company is not included in the Bill and we are touching upon wider matters about the whole future of the atomic energy policy, to which I will refer later.
Rather than dwell on the background it would be better if I were to move to the foreground and try to reply to as many of the important and useful contributions which have been made by hon. Members on both sides. To start with financial matters and my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon and others asked why the amount of money which it was possible to lend under the Bill had been reduced from £100 million to £75 million.
I would say first of all to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) that there is no question of the Atomic Energy Authority having power to go to the market. This power is entirely reserved under the Bill to the two new companies and we are not talking about the Authority at all in this respect but only about the possibility of the company being able to borrow money from the private capital market. The sum in the Bill, whether or not increased by Order, applies to the amount which the Government may lend either for the purchase of shares or the advancing of loans. It does not apply to the initial transaction of shares.
It is our belief that a certain amount of capital can be raised by the sale of equity shares to private companies participating and that, as the company gets under way, and develops a healthy record, further funds can be raised from the market by way of loans. It is by taking account of the needs of the company over the next five years, which is the longest foreseeable period, less the amount we believe can be raised from the private capital market, that the Government have arrived at the figure in the Bill. It is a reduction on the figure in the last Bill because we are optimistic about the chances of this being brought about.
The hon. Member for East Stirlingshire (Mr. Douglas) asked me what degree of parliamentary accountability would be applied to the new companies. There will be no more accountability than attaches to any private company, which is what these companies will be, except that through the National Loans Fund the hon. Gentleman can ask Questions about or debate the taxpayers' contributions. The companies are in a similar position to B.P. and other companies with a public shareholding. It is therefore right that we should remove any suspicion or suggestion that Parliament

will attempt to interfere in their day-today management or direction. This is the right degree of accountability for the companies to have. The hon. Gentleman also asked me whether the economic changes which the Government have made in investment incentives will in some away affect the position vis-à-vis our partners in the gas centrifuge Tripartite Agreement.
The hon. Member quoted the phrase "economic developments"—that we have to consult our partners concerning economic developments. Under the meaning of the agreement, a general change in investment incentives in one or other of the countries concerned does not amount to an economic development. These are not the sort of matters which the people who made the agreement had in mind.
The hon. Member asked about location of plants and investment incentives. The change in investment incentives will apply to the new companies. They will have free depreciation in a development area or the other incentives in non-development areas, the same as any other companies. Although this certainly will change the economics in some respects, I remind the hon. Member that one of the plants was in any case to be built abroad and that the other, at Capenhurst, is fixed in its location. It is not easy to see, therefore, that any of this has much relevance to regional policy.
The important question of the valuation of the shares of the company was raised by several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Craigton, and I will try to say a word about this. In passing, I would remark that the noble Lord, Lord Delacourt-Smith, who introduced the similar Bill in another place in April, had no more to say about the matter than this:
Of course, when that time comes professional advice will be taken."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 14th April, 1970; Vol. 309, c. 330.]
That seems to me to go far short of the strident demands of the Opposition for full information about the basis of valuation, how it will be done and whether we shall publish the report of the professional advisers who will advise upon valuation.
The question of valuing the shares is a difficult and highly professional matter.


The earning capacity in the future has to be assessed, and this will be difficult without there being a record of continuous management in the past. The Government do not conceal that the task of valuation is difficult. It therefore seems right to employ people who are skilled and practised in valuation and entirely unbiased. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry said that we would seek the advice of a merchant bank.
I think that the House will agree that the only way to deal with this is to put it in the hands of unbiased professionals and for both sides of the House to assess the value placed upon the shares. I assure the House, however, that we have no intention of concealing anything in this matter and that within the proper and prudent confines of commercial practice, we shall be frank with the House as is right when the question of valuation is discussed at a later date. Nothing has been done at the present time and, therefore, there is nothing of which I can inform the House today.
The hon. Member for East Stirlingshire asked why only a nominal amount of capital was specified in the draft articles of association. The answer is that it is intended at the beginning to set up a shell company and that this will take place before the appointed day. It must be in existence before the Bill is passed. The appropriate increase in the capital will be made before the transfer of the Authority's undertaking takes place. It is merely a convenient arrangement for making the changeover.
My hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon asked whether the fuel company will take holdings in Italian companies and other overseas enterprises at present in the hands of the Atomic Energy Authority. The answer is that it will do so and that the fuel company will take over all the relevant assets and liabilities of the A.E.A. Trading Fund. My hon. Friend also asked what progress was being made in matters of reprocessing fuel in various European countries. Discussions are taking place between the major European countries with a view to agreeing on reprocessing capacity, in which, I am certain, our own national fuel company will be interested.
There is no need, as my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon said, for the

Government to maintain a majority share in the radiochemical company, as opposed to the fuel company, for reasons of defence and security. The whole House is agreed that the Government should maintain a majority share in the fuel company, but those reasons do not of themselves apply to the radiochemical company.
We believe that it will facilitate the smooth transfer of activities from the A.E.A. to the companies to treat both companies alike. This is a measure of the Government's desire to make sure that those who are affected by these transfers—the staff—will have any justifiable fears allayed. When I come to the points dealing with staff, I think that I shall be able to demonstrate that we have gone as far as could ever be expected of the Government and exactly as far as the last Government went—there is nothing whatever between us—to dispel all these worries which the staff have put forward. I hope that I shall be able to convince the House that the treatment of those concerned throughout by the Government is exactly as they would like it to be.
The hon. Member for West Lothian asked why the Authority would still retain exclusive use of the facilities owned by the fuel company at Windscale and Springfields. The answer is that the bulk of the land and buildings will be required by the new fuel company at those two sites but that certain laboratories at those sites will continue to be required by the A.E.A. Therefore, an arrangement has been made whereby the land and buildings will be transferred to the new companies but the laboratories will remain for the exclusive use of the A.E.A., because it is the Authority which wants them and needs them and they are of no interest to the fuel company.
The first question which I was asked concerning the staff related to the chance of there being transfers to and fro between the Authority and the new companies. The arrangements envisaged appear to be reasonable in this respect. I do not think that there is much scope for permanent transfer on more than a limited scale. The previous Government said exactly the same thing and referred specifically to the transferability of pension rights. We believe, therefore, that a limited amount of transfer will be possible, but we do not foresee the need for large-scale transfers. My hon. Friend


will be delighted to have further discussions with, or take further points from, the staff side on any difficulties which arise over transferability.
The question of safety has been raised. I should like to give the House a strong assurance that there is no reason whatever why the new companies should not have every incentive to obtain the best advice they can get at the design stage of an installation and in putting it into practice. They are likely to continue to use the specialist services of the Authority's health and safety branch. The companies can choose what they will do in this matter—it is not for the Government to lay it down—but the House will, I think, recognise that those who will run the company have, perhaps, more incentive than anyone else to make sure that they are regarded as being above any conceivable suspicion in these matters, and I am sure that that will be the case.

Mr. Palmer: Would the hon. Gentleman agree that the companies will be subject in any event to the provisions of the Nuclear Installations Act?

Mr. Ridley: It will be necessary for companies to have licences under the Nuclear Installations Act, and if the arrangements are not perfect they will not be granted a licence and will have to make their arrangements better.
Next I should like to deal with the question of terms and conditions for the staff. There will be an interim period between the companies being set up and the new contracts being signed for the staff, and during that interim period, during which negotiations on terms and conditions can take place, staff are deemed to be employed on terms and conditions corresponding as nearly as the circumstances permit to those they enjoy at the present time with the Authority. It is impossible, obviously, to lay down identical terms and conditions when the employer is different, and the nature of the company is different, but I think anybody should be satisfied with the assurance, that in the interim period the terms and conditions will be as nearly as possible identical to those which exist at the present time.
Later, the companies will negotiate new contracts with the staff. The Government are well aware of the undertaking given in 1954 that the terms and con-

ditions of service in the Authority will not be less favourable than those enjoyed by staff in the Civil Service, and the Bill provides, in Clause 9, that the new terms and conditions are to be negotiated in accordance with the principle that they are to be no less favourable than those enjoyed by the staff whilst in the employment of the Authority. The Bill even goes so far as to provide for arbitration on this point. It would be impossible to specify that the terms and conditions of service must be perpetually in line with those of the Civil Service. The companies we are thinking about will be new, independent companies and they will naturally want to develop their staff contracts and their staff relationships in the way they think best. We have, I think, in this Bill guaranteed that intially contracts will be at least as good as Authority contracts, and it will be up to the consultative machinery of both sides of the companies to see how these contracts develop in the future, and it would be quite wrong to bind the companies for all time to provide terms identical with those in the Civil Service.
This brings me to the question of the pensions. The point has been pressed upon the Government that there is no need to change the entitlement of the staff to the Atomic Energy Authority's present superannuation scheme. The companies will inevitably at some stage have to set up their own superannuation schemes for the purposes of recruiting new staff and, of course, expanding their staff, because it is very likely that in 10 years' time there will be a totally different number of people employed in the companies alongside those who transfer on the day when the companies are set up. So one would have the situation whereby in the companies there would be two different sorts of pension scheme, one of the original A.E.A. type, the other the new companies' pension schemes, and this would make for division within the companies, an unsatisfactory state of affairs. Therefore, one would very much prefer that the whole of the staffs of the companies should start life upon a new pension scheme negotiated between the employees of the new companies as soon as practicable.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has already informed representatives of the staff that it is to be expected


that the companies will wish to set up their own pension schemes for the reasons which I have just given, but there are very strong safeguards in the Bill in respect of these pension schemes. They are just as effective as the safeguards in respect of terms and conditions of service which I have just mentioned. The only difference lies in the fact that whereas other terms and conditions are subject to arbitration, it is the Secretary of State himself who has responsibility, under Clause 20, for satisfying himself that the provisions of the pensions scheme are no less favourable than the Authority's scheme itself. So there is a safeguard written into the Bill that a new pension scheme must be no less favourable.

Mr. Dalyell: Why is it that the arrangements between the Authority and the T.N.P.G., to which both the Under-Secretary's hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Neave) and I made reference, is not thought very satisfactory? It has worked perfectly well.

Mr. Ridley: I am just coming to that point. This is the point which my hon. Friend raised, that some of the staff of Culham transferred from the A.E.A. to the Science Research Council and yet were allowed to remain in the Authority's pension scheme.

Mr. Neave: That is a different point. The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) is referring to the transfer of the A.E.A. at Risley, and the T.N.P.G. point, and I raised the Culham point, which is a separate issue.

Mr. Ridley: I do not think I am wrong, because I think the point is the same in both cases. They are two instances of the same sort of point. The Culham staff have been transferred but allowed to stay in the A.E.A. pension scheme from which they came. The situation arose whereby some staff would have been on one type of pension scheme and other staff on another type of pension scheme. This would have made it more difficult to recruit staff. That is why we have changed the practice in this respect, because it has been found that it was not a very suitable situation and one which should be avoided in future by those responsible for management in these various enterprises which hon. Gentlemen have mentioned.

Mr. Dalyell: We are not quibbling here. There is a substantial issue involved, and it is the whole issue of mobility between one organisation and another. There is the danger that we have been referring to that those organisations will become so stratified that it will be to the great disadvantage of the whole of British industry in this field. It is not just an issue of pensions, but a deeper issue—the issue of mobility—and that is what is worrying the T.N.P.G.

Mr. Ridley: I would say that one would like ideally to have a situation where all industrial pensions were immediately transferable, in and out of public and private enterprise, in and out of every company, but this is not a subject which we can raise on this Bill at this time, nor is it a subject for which my Department is responsible. I can only say that till the general problem is solved and—I very much hope that it will be—it is much better to have a separate pension scheme in an expanding business like the nuclear fuel field, one where there is likely to be more and more staff taken on, than it is to have also an Authority pension scheme when one would have two classes of staff existing side by side with different pension rights or prospects.
I must now turn to the question of the future of the A.E.A. We have in the Bill set out plans to transfer the production activities from the Authority. That will involve 9,500 staff; on the other hand, about 20,000 staff will remain with the Authority. This is a sizeable organisation, and there is no doubt about its future viability. Nevertheless, the Government appreciate the need to study the longer-term future of the rest of the Authority. It is important to bear in mind that this remaining part will be an organisation with a complex of activities, not only in the field of reactor research and development but in applied nuclear and non-nuclear fields, and the best way of organising these activities in the longer-term is not a matter in which easy, snap judgments should be made.
In July, in answer to a Question, my hon. Friend, at that time Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology, said:
We are considering the future of the Department's research establishments in the light of the many constructive comments on the previous Administration's Green Paper. We will make a statement as soon as we have


completed the review."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th July, 1970; Vol. 803, c. 1125.]
I think it is recognised by hon. Members who asked us what our plans for the Authority were that it would be quite wrong to rush out with answers before we are entirely ready; in fact, the hon. Member for Craigton said that it would be only right for us to take time before making up our minds. The previous Government took five-and-a-half years for the job. They published their famous Green Paper, and were met with a barrage of comments—mostly, but not all, critical. They were in the strange position of having gone to Press with proposals which, on the whole, were not well received, and therefore they will probably agree that their own record of progress in the matter was nothing for them to be pleased with.
The hon. Member for Bristol, Central, in his ding-dong battle with the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East, said that the Government had been proceeding in a leisurely way about the whole matter. The Government are not yet in a position to make any announcement about their ideas for the future of the A.E.A. As soon as we are we shall tell the House what our views are, in the most appropriate way. It would be wrong to say now whether the paper will be white, green or pink, or whether it will be in the form of a statement or a speech by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I ask the House to be patient in this respect because we have not finished the review.

Mr. Benn: On the question of the way in which the Government should proceed, may I put one point to the hon. Gentleman. It is right that our Green Paper was much criticised, but the hon. Member will know that any proposal for dealing with the A.E.A. will be criticised, because this is a very difficult area. I very much hope that he will not tell us that when the Government come forward with their proposals they will not give the same opportunity of public debate that we gave by way of the Green Paper; I hope that they will not come along with a firm statement and say, "This is our view", because that would be totally unsatisfactory.

Mr. Ridley: The right hon. Gentleman would also agree that it would be rash

of me to say how we will handle the presentation and discussion of our proposals until we have decided what they are. We have not yet come to a conclusion as to what the proposals are. I am certain, however, that my right hon. Friend will take into account what the right hon. Gentleman has said. We intend to be as open and frank as possible, and to invite such discussion as is proper, but it would be quite wrong for me to express myself in advance as to the right way of achieving that object.
We have been asked about the future The figure of £1,000 million for future world sales of nuclear fuel is a large one. The hon. Member for West Lothian asked how it had been arrived at. The answer is that it results from an estimate made by the A.E.A. of the growth in electricity and the proportion of that growth that will be met by nuclear power. It is not a precise figure—it is an order-of-magnitude figure—but it indicates the large size of the future market.
It would be impossible to say just what share of that market we are likely to get and even to say, therefore, just what profits or dividends the new nuclear fuel company is likely to make; that depends upon its ability to compete, and in the success of its investments and of all who work in it. But the present forecast shows that a great potential lies in this field, and the past history of the trading fund of the A.E.A. will give the House every confidence that the new fuel company will achieve a good share of this growing and important world market.
The same is true of the radiochemical company. My hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon has been about the only Member to spend much time on that company. It is right that I should end on its prospects. The demand for isotopes is growing throughout the world. and over the next five years The Radiochemical Centre expects to double its sales and to reach £9 million worth of sales a year, over half of which will be for export.
These two companies will therefore be launched in a very favourable atmosphere. The whole House has welcomed the Bill, the two major parties are lying down like lions and lambs together to give the companies a welcome, and they are all hoping that the companies will be entirely successful and that all who work


in them will feel that the arrangements that have been made for their transfer from the A.E.A. to the companies have been fair and reasonable.
My hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and I will be delighted to receive representations, and will try to meet any points that hon. Members feel have not quite been dealt with satisfactorily either before the Committee stage or in Committee. There has been extensive consultation and we are satisfied that everything possible has been done to meet all

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Humphrey Atkins.]

Committee tomorrow.

ATOMIC ENERGY AUTHORITY [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the transfer of parts of the undertaking of the United

the legitimate points. The fact that we have produced a Bill almost identical to that produced by hon. Members opposite shows that we have both largely come to the same conclusions.

It only remains for me to wish the two companies and all who work in them every good fortune in the future.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 81, Noes 8.

Division No. 52.]
AYES
[7.47 p.m.


Adley, Robert
Green, Alan
Normanton, Tom


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Gummer, Selwyn
Onslow, Cranley


Atkins, Humphrey
Gurden, Harold
Owen, Idris (Stockport, N.)


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Hawkins, Paul
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Hay, John
Palmer, Arthur


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Hicks, Robert
Pounder, Ration


Benyon, W.
Hill, James (Southampton, Test)
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Biffen, John
Holland, Philip
Redmond, Robert


Boscawen, R. T.
Hornby, Richard
Reed, Laurance (Bolton, E.)


Bowden, Andrew
Iremonger, T. L.
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Knox, David
Scott-Hopkins, James


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus,N&amp;M)
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Channon, Paul
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Chapman, Sydney
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Simeons, Charles


Costain, A. P.
McLaren, Martin
Speed, Keith


Crouch, David
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Stanbrook, Ivor


Curran, Charles
Mather, Carol
Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)


Dalyell, Tam
Mawby, Ray
Tebbit, Norman


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Drayson, G. B.
Millan, Bruce
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Eden, Sir John
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Trafford, Dr. Anthony


Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne,N.)
Moate, Roger
Ward, Dame Irene


Eyre, Reginald
Monks, Mrs. Connie
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)
More, Jasper
Younger, Hn. George


Fookes, Miss Janet
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Fowler, Norman
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Mr. Hector Monro and


Fox, Marcus
Neave, Airey
Mr. Tim Fortescue.




NOES


Cohen, Stanley
Latham, Arthur



Doig, Peter
Lawson, George
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Pendry, Tom
Mr. James Wellbeloved and


Garnett, W. E.
Small, William
Mr. Ray Carter.

Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, it is expedient to authorize—

(1) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament, or the payment into the Consolidated Fund, of any sums so payable under or in consequence of any provision of the said Act of the present Session;
(2) the payment out of or into the National Loans Fund of any sums so payable under any provision of that Act; and
(3) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to any provision of that Act in the sums so payable

(a) under section 4(1) of the Atomic Energy Authority Act, 1954; and
(b) under, or in respect of expenses incurred under, section 24 of the Nuclear Installations Act, 1965.—[Mr. Ridley.]

FARM AMALGAMATIONS AND BOUNDARY CHANGES

7.56 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Anthony Stodart): I beg to move,
That the Farm Structure (Payments to Out-goers) Scheme 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 1st December, be approved.
With permission, it might be convenient also to discuss the other Motion—
That the Farm Amalgamations and Boundary Adjustments Scheme 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 1st December, be approved.
The two Schemes are fairly closely related.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): if that is the wish of the House. I am sure that it is agreeable.

Mr. Stodart: These Schemes are made under Sections 26 and 27 of the Agriculture Act, 1963, as amended by Section 32 of the Agriculture Act 1970. I do not pretend that they are models of simplicity. But perhaps I might take this, the first opportunity that I have had to add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) to those which my hon. Friend paid him last week. I can recollect that when the 1967 Bill was in Committee, some comments were made about the complexity of these provisions. Looking back, I have no regrets for making those comments.
One thing I am satisfied about is that, in a debate a week ago, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland said that he was relieved that he was not on the Committee which gave rise to these Clauses, and that therefore no chickens could come home to roost because of his comments. I have of course taken care to look up my comments on the subject of these Clauses, and find to my relief that, apart from one or two details, I gave the Bill a general welcome.
The Amendments made by Section 32 of the 1970 Act had two main objects. They corrected some defects in the existing legislation and also provided for grant on remodelling works resulting from an amalgamation or boundary

adjustment, to be paid under the proposed Farm Capital Grant Scheme, which was debated in the House last week.
These present two Schemes follow directly from that, and they do not attempt to change in any radical way the existing measures to encourage farm amalgamations which featured in the 1967 Schemes and which these ones will replace. During the next few months we shall, however, be reviewing the operation of the structure schemes generally to see—this requires very careful consideration—whether there is a case for making further changes, in order to give more effective help to the creation of viable units.
I have already mentioned the intention to pay grant on remodelling works under the Farm Capital Grant Scheme, which the House approved last week and which comes into operation on 1st January. This is all part of our recasting of the capital grants to give us a unified Scheme which will reduce paper work. Where a farmer wants to apply for grant, not only on remodelling works but also on other items which are not a consequence of the amalgamation, he will be able to get grant on all the eligible items under one scheme. This apart, the main change which is common to both structure Schemes is that provision is made, following the amending of Section 26(1)(a) of the 1967 Act for an amalgamation to absorb part only of an uncommercial unit. This could apply, and would be useful, for example, where the rest of the unit is going for amalgamation elsewhere or where it belongs to a different owner from the part being amalgamated. We shall, of course, have to be satisfied that there is an actual improvement in farm structure in cases where an amalgamation absorbs only part of an uncommercial unit.
When the revised Schemes are introduced we plan to use more up-to-date standard man-day equivalents in assessing the labour requirements of the farms concerned. It will be common knowledge to those interested in agriculture that even since that slightly jargonistic phrase "standard man-day equivalents" was first introduced, and that is not long ago, there have been considerable changes in the management and output of farms, which have caused us to embark on a reassessment of the whole system of


assessing these standard man-day equivalents. This will bring within the Schemes some farmers whose farms would, on the standard man-day figures used now, be classed as commercial and, thus, would not be eligible for amalgamation under the Scheme. The change would, however, by itself have the effect of making ineligible some potential outgoers with very small farms who are at the bottom end of the scale. They would qualify under the Schemes as they are just now.
We want to give these very small farmers a chance of taking part in the revised schemes, and so we have offset the effect of the change in standard man-day equivalents by reducing the minimum number of standard man-days for the outgoer's farm from 100 to 80. Of the changes made to the individual Schemes, I should, perhaps, mention that the revised amalgamations Scheme sets out, in paragraph 8(2), the types of incidental costs which are eligible for grant, and which were formerly covered by Section 26(3) of the 1967 Act as originally enacted.
In paragraph 9 it also provides for grant to smallholdings authorities, following the provisions of Part III of the 1970 Act, and it will allow the grant-aiding of some amalgamations resulting in permanent intermediate units, where this is part of the reorganisation of the authorities' estates. For reasons which the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland will know well, this paragraph does not apply to Scotland.
Intermediate units are holdings which are at the upper end of the uncommercial scale. They are not intended to reach the two-man size, which is, broadly speaking, the yardstick of a commercial unit.
Paragraph 10(1) provides, in conformity with the announcement following the 1970 Annual Review, for an extra 10 per cent. grant on the incidental costs of amalgamations or boundary adjustments which are submitted or approved in the two years commencing 19th March, 1970.
On the outgoers Scheme, I think the only changes which I need mention are the relaxation of the income test and the additional provision to help widows whose husbands die while their applications are being dealt with. This important point, which is to be found in paragraph 10, was made in Committee.

On the income test, which is to be found in paragraph 7(1), we have followed the intentions of the previous Government and increased from £400 to £750 the amount of non-farm income which can be disregarded before calculating whether three-quarters of the income of the outgoer and his wife comes from the farm.
I hope that the changes which have been made, coupled with the much shorter 15-years period—this matter inspired a very spirited debate in Committee—for which Schedule 3 conditions now apply to amalgamated units, will encourage more amalgamators to take advantage of these grants.
I recognise that the Schemes are not simple, but they reflect to some extent the complexities of amalgamations and of the enabling legislation. As I have mentioned, we are reviewing the measures concerned with farm structure. If our review shows that the Schemes now before the House are not likely to be as successful as we wish, we shall be bringing forward proposals for further changes. But the revised Schemes which are now before us will carry through the process of unifying the farm capital grants and will make a number of other useful improvements. It is on this basis that I invite the House to approve them.

8.8 p.m.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: I wish, at the outset, to thank the Minister for his kind personal remarks and to join with him in the pleasing recollection of the passage of the parent Act. Long our sittings may have been, but profitable they certainly were also.
I move to a more discordant note in expressing regret at the fact that he has not found it possible to make more plain which criteria of size or profitability the Government have in mind in initiating their review of the structure of farms. The previous Government gave some indication of the hope they had for a reduction in the number of units that were not viable when the Scheme was first introduced, and it is plain that these targets are very far from having been reached. The take-up under both the existing Schemes has been substantially less than expected.
In initiating a review of the structure of our farms, especially at this time, when the whole question of size and related profitability is so much under debate in the countries of the European Economic Community, it might have been helpful to the farming industry if we had had some idea of the Government's thinking.
These Schemes are very much in the nature of a patching-up operation, and as such they can be welcomed, but they do not go very far. The Minister has probably seen the current edition of Farmers' Weekly, which describes the Schemes as
No more than a tantalising will-o'-the-wisp for the man who cannot afford to expand and for his neighbour who cannot afford to retire.
It was the original intention and hope that under the existing Schemes, which the proposed Schemes will replace, the non-viable farms should be reduced by some 15,000 by 1970, that is, about 5,000 per annum. But as I understand it, the figure has been in the order of 1,450 farms which have been amalgamated, fewer than 1 per cent. of the farms which, by the test of the 600 standard man-days, are regarded as viable.
Under the present amalgamation Scheme only 1,700 applications have been approved out of 4,300 in three years. From what the Minister said, I take it that he is not wholly satisfied with the progress made towards reducing the number of non-viable holdings. But I wonder what indications he has had that it is matters which are dealt with in these Schemes which are responsible for the relatively disappointing take-up.
I have heard criticisms, as have my hon. Friends, of the tardiness of the Departments, both in Scotland and in the Ministry, in handling applications, which in itself constitutes some disincentive to go forward with a scheme.
On the lump sum golden handshake, the payment to outgoers, the figures are also very small. As I understand it, only some 740 applications for lump sum payment and 710 applications for annuities have been met, and the total sum paid out is little more than £1,100,000.
When these Schemes were before the House on a previous occasion, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Anthony Stodart) said that on the Farm Structure (Payments to Outgoers) Scheme,

the nub of the question was paragraph 8, pertaining to the amount of grant. As one expects of him, he was very careful on that occasion to hedge his bets, in a sense, and not to say that the amount was either too small or to large but that we should have to wait and see what happened in the outcome.

Mr. Stodart: I never hedge my bets, because I never bet.

Mr. Maclennan: If I may use another metaphor, he was very careful to leave the issue open. The hon. Gentleman will agree that he was ready to do so.
One can infer from the Scheme before us that the hon. Gentleman must feel that the sums contained in the Payments to Outgoers Scheme were precisely right, because, as far as I can see, no alteration has been made in the sums. If this is correct, it has not perhaps been sufficiently widely appreciated. I noticed the rather misleading headline in the British Farmer of 12th December,
Bigger handshake on farm mergers.
On my study of the Scheme, that is not an accurate picture of the situation.
What has been happening during this whole period of time—if one goes back to 1960, and the trend has not greatly changed since the Scheme was introduced—has been a contradiction in the overall number of holdings in the country. A very useful survey and study of this has been published earlier this year by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, on the changing structure of agriculture in this country. It shows that the number of holdings has declined from 440,000 in 1960 to 380,000 in 1968, the last year which the survey referred to; that in the same period of time the average acreage of crops and grass on farms has risen from 70 to 80; and that in the five-year period from 1963 to 1968 there has likewise been a decline in the number of full-time farms in England and Wales, from 175,000 to 156,000, and in Scotland, from 27,000 to 25,700.
It is plain that this process has not been greatly accelerated by the Schemes. I should have liked to have heard from the Minister the pace of acceleration which he and the Government envisage


as desirable. I take it that in initially bringing forward these proposals, the previous Government had in mind something other than merely the assisting out of the agricultural industry all those with unprofitable farms. The purpose was rather more dynamic. It was intended to enable small farmers to become more viable by giving them access to additional land. It was not conceived, as I understand it, that these Schemes should provide the means whereby the large farmer enlarged his domain. It would be most unfortunate if, by the direct intervention of the State, the big farmer should be encouraged in this positive way to become bigger still. Unfortunately, in so far as the new Scheme changes the situation, it may end in that direction. It may tend to encourage the strong to enlarge at the expense of the weak.
I think that the revisions of the conditions as to eligibility arising from the adoption of the revised standard man-day provisions in the 1970 Regulations, will have the effect, as the Under-Secretary said, of making the scheme for amalgamation open to larger farmers, and I wonder whether that was the right end at which to tackle the task. I recognise that he looks upon this as merely a holding operation pending the completion of the review.
A further doubt arises in my mind in connection with the amount of non-farm income which is ignored in applying the outside income test under the Outgoers Scheme. It is now raised from £400 to £750. Again, I am not entirely clear whether the desired end will be achieved.
The original purposes of the Scheme will not be substantially altered by the Measure before us tonight, and to that extent I think it possible to welcome the Instrument on behalf of the Opposition. Like the hon. Gentleman, I consider that the amount of the grants
must not be so great as to cause a mass exit from small farms."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th October. 1967; Vol. 751, c. 1788.]
Those were his words in the debate on that occasion. Nor should it distort the whole balance of farming, which would be disastrous. But I wonder what thought the hon. Gentleman has given to the question whether the sums which the Government set then are right, particularly taking into account the inflation which has occurred since 1967.
The Scheme has, perhaps, suffered from misrepresentation or misunderstanding during the period since it was introduced. Although the then Government and Opposition emphasised the importance of it being understood that it was a voluntary scheme, that has not been fully appreciated, and this may have led to some resistance in certain areas.
I feel, also, that the natural concomitant of the scheme has not been given sufficient emphasis by the present Government. Plainly, to the extent that these schemes succeed, they create a need for extra rural employment. I think particularly of the action of the present Government in Wales regarding the Rural Development Board as indicative of their failure to face up to that need. To the extent that they are successful in creating amalgamations of non-viable holdings, the Schemes create a new need, a greater need for the provision of new jobs in these areas.
Will the Government tell us when they expect that their review of the structure of farming will be completed? What consultations are they having on the subject? Is the review being carried on within the Department, and are they taking the advice of external agricultural economists as well as of the Farmers' Unions and other interests?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his lucid account of how these rather complicated Schemes have been changed. Like him, I think that clarity may lead to their being more attractive to the general farming community. However, I recall that on an earlier occasion he himself asked what steps were being taken to make the schemes understood, and whether pamphlets were being produced to explain them simply to the public. I repeat the question tonight.

8.25 p.m.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary on bringing the Scheme forward, and I take it to be part of a much wider review of what is needed.
I was utterly bewildered by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan). I could not discover whether he approved of the Scheme or thought it a bad thing. He seemed to contradict himself as he


went along. At one point, the hon. Gentleman seemed to question whether it was right to raise from £400 to £750 the disregarded part of private income, yet almost in the next breath he spoke of the effect of inflation, which made me think that he ought to have suggested that the figure should have been increased even further.
None the less, the hon. Gentleman raised the basic question about which we should be thinking: Are we doing the right thing in the wider context? When introducing the Scheme, my hon. Friend said that it was a holding operation while a wider review was going on. Always, after a scheme has been running for some time, one finds fewer applicants to come forward. In my view, it must be right to take out non-viable farms and, if appropriate, put them into larger units. I disagree entirely with the hon. Gentleman when he argues that it is not a good thing to put these non-viable pieces of land into a large farm unit. If such land can go conveniently into a larger farm, so be it. I am all in favour of it happening.

Mr. Maclennan: The hon. Gentleman completely distorts what I said. I entirely accept the principle that it is desirable to create viable units. I was emphasing the concomitant desirability of creating alternative employment for those who have to give up their non-viable holdings.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: That was the second point which the hon. Gentleman raised. If he reads his speech in HANSARD, he will see that at an earlier point he questioned the propriety of taking some non-viable land out of the hands of the small occupiers or tenants who have it now and amalgamating it with a larger farm. He said that this was not what he had regarded as the concept in the mind of his right hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) when he introduced the Act under which the Scheme is made. In my view, it is something which could and should happen in many instances. It is necessary to take non-viable land out of use.
One has to ask oneself whether this is the right way of proceeding. What does my hon. Friend think? Has the present Scheme been succeeding so far? Were the figures quoted by the hon. Member

for Caithness and Sutherland the correct figures? Is my hon. Friend satisfied with the progress that has been made? Is he satisfied that even this improved Scheme, marginal though the improvement is in several aspects, will meet the intention? Presumably, over a period of five or seven years we are seeking to get the maximum amount of unviable land amalgamated into viable units. Will the Scheme achieve that end? I confess to some doubt. That is why I am glad to have been told that this Scheme represents only a holding operation during a wider review of the whole structure of farming and of Government aid to farms.
How much money should we now be giving to get people out of farming into different work? Is payment necessary, or will ordinary economic circumstances force unviable land out of business? Several years ago about 4,000 farms a year were going out as a result of amalgamations brought about by the economic facts of life. People were selling farms which, once sold, were amalgamated. But there are still parcels of land which people are keen to take over and on which they lose money. It is one of the most incomprehensible things I have ever known. These people carry on for three or four years and lose what little money they have, then someone else takes over and the process is repeated time and again. I know that it is that sort of land which my hon. Friend seeks to bring under the Scheme, but will the proposed payment to outgoers prove a sufficient inducement?
I turn to one or two points of detail. My hon. Friend will see in page 2 under "tenant" that executors and administrators of tenants are excluded. I have no quarrel with the first case, but does the definition of an administrator include someone, himself a tenant farmer, with a power of attorney for a tenant who has had, say, a stroke and has not been able to execute a power of attorney? I do not know why such a person should be excluded. This may be a small point but it has caused difficulty in a case which has been brought to my notice.
Again, paragraph 3(1) refers to a period of seven years. Can we be told what is the particular magic about a seven-year period?
In general, I welcome the Scheme. It is an improvement on the original


Scheme although the improvements are only marginal. Is he satisfied that he is going far enough, and must we await the review of farm structure before going further? How has the Scheme succeeded so far? Is my hon. Friend satisfied that even this interim Scheme will bring about the very necessary amalgamations?

8.33 p.m.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: As my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) said, and as has been acknowledged by the other side, the changes brought about by the two Schemes will not be very considerable. I agree with what my hon. Friend said about delays. We should see a very material improvement in these Schemes if the Minister would consider whether the Ministry was deploying enough staff to deal with these matters. I have had a number of complaints of delay in Cardiganshire, and I know that other rural Members have had very much the same experience. Delays of six or nine months or longer, are very much the ordinary thing.
My criticism of the Schemes is twofold. I believe, on the one hand that they encourage indiscriminate and wasteful amalgamations and, on the other hand, I hold the view that the Government have failed to take positive action to assist the small farms as much as they could and should be helped.
On the first point, as is obvious to the House, these grants are available to the owner of a big farm who wishes to add a holding to what is already a bountiful agricultural unit, as indeed they are available to a small man who wishes to acquire land to achieve viability. The small farmer who feels that he must have hand to give himself and his family the chance to reach a reasonable standard of living must compete in the market with his more powerful and affluent neighbour.
If the position as regards farm amalgamations were fairly static, it could well be argued that that was a rather inequitable position which it would be right for Parliament to correct; but the position is not static. Between 1960 and 1968 the number of farm holdings in England and Wales fell from 480,000 to 420,000. In Wales 12,000 farms have disappeared since the end of the Second World War.

I am sure that the Minister will confirm that the present rate of disappearance of farm units is running at about 2 per cent. per annum.
Many people lament the decline in the number of small farms, but protest without a constructive alternative plan is futile. It is clear that unless something substantial is done this relentless, unremitting process will continue. I believe that the choice confronting successive Governments is between consolidation of small farms or their destruction.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: We are not talking about small farms. We are talking about unviable units. There is a tremendous difference between the two. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that unviable units must be held in a state of inaction, for want of a better word?

Mr. Morgan: I was using the rather general term "small farms", but I accept the hon. Gentleman's correction that I should be talking about unviable units. If a small farm is such an intensive farm as to be viable there is no reason why it should be called a small farm at all.
I was using the term "small farms" to mean unviable holdings. If we think of 10 small farms existing now, it may well be that in 10 or 20 years time, if nothing is done, all of those farms will have been bought up and subsumed within the boundaries of larger units. The alternative is to consolidate the pattern and encourage some of the owners of those farms to buy farms coming on to the market so that ultimately there could be four, five, six or seven of those farms, viable and with the chance of continuing to exist. The present pattern is so riddled with weaknesses that it cannot continue. Anybody who wishes to destroy Britain's small farms pattern need only sit back and do nothing.
My second point is that the Government have lost the opportunity of discriminating in favour of the small, unviable farm. They could have brought in a differential scheme of grant and they could have gone out of their way to weight the situation so as to give the small man a chance to compete in the market with his bigger and more powerful neighbour. A scheme of grant or loans that is designed to deal with that problem is the way by which the Government could have cancelled some of the fundamental disadvantages which the small


man suffers when he tries to accrete to his unit to make it viable.
I know that the Under-Secretary will readily agree with me that the major problem facing farmers is the problem of credit, and that problem is felt the more acutely by small farmers. If the Government wish to help small farmers they will apply their minds very earnestly to this question.
It was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart) when he was Minister of Agriculture, and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Anglesey (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes), that they had no wish to eliminate the small farm but wished rather to strengthen it so that it could be a viable unit, protected for the future and enabled to make its best contribution to British agriculture. But it appears to me that behind these Schemes there is a rationale which is founded upon the hypothesis that small farms are an evil. Dreary sermons on farm structure are read by Ministers from time to time.
We are told that 5,000 very large farms—farms having more than 3,600 standard man days a year or over—although they represent only 2 per cent. of the holdings in England and Wales, are responsible for a total agricultural output of not less than 21 per cent. We are reminded that the top-sized 1 per cent. of farms in Britain between them are responsible for an aggregate production of about 15 per cent. of the total, and that one-quarter of the larger farmers are responsible for three-quarters of the agricultural production. On the other hand, we are told that the holders of small-sized units, representing 25 per cent. of the totality of British farmers between them are responsible for only one-sixth of the total output.
An unbiased person listening to such statistics would gain the impression that small farmers were lazy or incompetent, or were in a position where they could not fairly contribute to the success of British agriculture. What is not said by the reciters of these statistics is the amount of land held by the larger farmers, the character and quality of the land, how much capital is invested in those larger enterprises and how much labour is engaged. Only after computing those

factors is one in a position to judge whether, all things then being equal, small farmers are more productive or less productive than their bigger brethren. Seldom in these statistics is prominence given to figures of the totality of land held by the larger farmers.
In "The Changing Structure of British Agriculture", published in June of this year, we see that farms of 300 acres or more, although between them they represent only 5·7 per cent. of the totality of holdings, hold 33·5 per cent. of the agricultural land in Britain. It is by taking into account the amount of land that is held and the proportion of capital assets dedicated to agriculture that one finds a true basis upon which to make a meaningful calculation.
There is an influential section of agricultural opinion that is affected by the phobia that the small farm is an institution which is standing in the path of agricultural progress. I have said on many occasions in the House that I do not believe that sufficient credit has been given to the factor of intensive farming by the small farmer. It is not a situation which comes about by nice calculations of profit, but it is forced upon him by the harsh law of economic necessity. Some years ago studies were made by the University of Exeter on the net income per acre of farms in various groups. If the Minister will study those figures, he will find that for farms of between 20 and 50 acres the average net income per acre was £21·03; between 50 to 100 acres, £13·03 and between 100 and 150 acres, £10·74.
I represent a constituency in Mid-Wales, which is very largely an area of small farms. I was one of those Members who welcomed the proposed setting up of a Rural Development Board for Mid-Wales in 1967. I gave support to it, not because I believe that it would be an engine of tyranny—indeed, the compulsory powers which it was proposed should be vested in the board were very much milder than those vested in a parish council—but because such a board could bring about such a situation that considerably more small farms would be in existence five, ten or 15 years hence than if it were not created.
The Conservative Party did not show initiative in objecting to the proposed board. I do not believe that one speech


was made from the Conservative benches against the principle of setting up a rural development board. Certainly there was no division about it during the Committee or Report stage of the Bill. But the Conservative Party was very quick to take opportunistic advantage of ruthless turmoil created by others. There was a campaign of foul misrepresentation and of exaggerating every possible peril and disadvantage of such a board and writing down and denying every advantage which could flow to Mid-Wales from its creation. As a result, Mid-Wales, which has been neglected for so long and has such great needs and complex problems, finds itself deprived of a board of the sort which is bringing such prosperity to and showing such promise for the Pennines.
Farming is not only an industry; it is a way of life in the countryside. It is a repository of standards, outlooks and attitudes. That is the structure of a rural society and not just a process by which food is produced for the State. If the pattern of small farms is destroyed, many communities such as mine will disintegrate. In any event, the life of Britain will have lost something invaluable. I do not believe that the Government are doing all they can to assist small farms. I ask the Minister, in the review which he is undertaking, urgently to apply his mind with imagination and vigour to that very principle.

8.48 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs and Agriculture, Scottish Office (Mr. Alick Buchanan-Smith): We have had a very useful debate. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have put forward very constructive thoughts on the problem of small farmers and of farm structure generally. I think that all who have spoken were at some stage members of the Committee which considered the Measure which is the parent of the Scheme we are discussing, because the Committee stage stretched over two Parliaments.
One of the more philosophical questions raised in the debate—and this is particularly true of what the hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Elystan Morgan) said—has been about how we view the future of small farmers. If one took some of the hon. Gentleman's remarks completely at their face value, one would think that, through having schemes like

this—and he spoke of small farms being an evil—it was the object of successive Governments—

Mr. Elystan Morgan: I certainly did not say that small farms were evil.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will hold himself back for a moment. He quoted statements that people had said that the improvements of small farms were an evil. That is where I was quoting the hon. Gentleman. There is danger in a debate like this of an impression going out that it is the object of successive Governments to get rid of small farms. This is where the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) was so right, as was acknowledged by the hon. Member for Cardigan—that it is not the small farmer as such who is the problem.
The figures quoted by the hon. Gentleman in terms of productivity and output per acre show that it is often the small farmer, who, perhaps because of the small size of his holding, has to work his land very much more intensively, so that the output per acre is very much greater than on a farm of larger size. In the part of the country which I represent it is often the small farmer, through the intensity of his business and through his attention to the commercial aspect of his farm, who in many ways sets an example and sets the pace in terms of business efficiency. He often sets a high standard for farms which are very much bigger.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: I believe that I made it clear that I was talking about small, unviable farms. I ask the hon. Gentleman to pay attention to the fact that the figures I quoted from the Exeter study applied largely to non-viable farms. I think that they are non-viable but that nevertheless their contribution to the success of British agriculture is very considerable.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I endorse what the hon. Gentleman said. Small farms, like big farms, make their contribution. This is why, in the Scheme as administered, we use the standard of standard man days, which is the nearest standard we can apply. It is perhaps a rough and ready way, but it is the best available in commercial standards in trying to determine what is a viable and what is not a


viable unit. To that extent, we look upon the Scheme not in terms of size of acreage but in relation to the business capability of the farm.
There is another serious aspect in considering the disappearance of the small farmer in efficiency and other terms. Is a community better off with very small, unprosperous farmers, struggling for a living, or better off with farmers earning a reasonable living? I would choose a prosperous community as contributing more to the countryside than an unprosperous community.
I accept the concern of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) about the problems of depopulation. But when an amalgamation takes place it does not necessarily mean a decline of population in that area. The land still remains and still needs people to farm it and look after livestock. The fact that we are likely to create a more commercial and viable unit has the effect in the long run probably of keeping people on the land rather than losing them. At the same time, I accept that, in some of our rural areas, we have problems of depopulation which, of course, can have an effect on the whole structure of local society.
Before coming to the general aspects and how we see future prospects, I want to answer some of the points raised in the debate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West asked a technical question about the power of attorney. He asked whether someone in the circumstances he described would qualify. The Order would not exclude a man incapable of making his own application because of some mental or physical disability. I hope that that will set my hon. Friend's fears at rest.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Does that mean that the person acting for him will be able to make the application'?

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: It is the spirit of the Order that that should not be a problem. However, I should like to write to my hon. Friend about the legal question of the power of attorney for someone acting as an administrator or executor.
My hon. Friend asked a question about the seven-year period, but that is a prob-

lem which is covered by the parent Act and nothing can be done about it in the Order.
The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland mentioned publicity. I am glad to be able to say that a draft explanatory leaflet has been prepared—I have a draft in my hand—and it is now at the printers. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will think that it explains the scheme fully and simply and will show those who wish to take advantage of the scheme exactly what is involved.
He mentioned the Rural Development Board for Wales, as did the hon. Member for Cardigan. That is not included in the Order and I do not intend to be drawn into discussing it.
I thought that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland was rather grudging about the fact that we had raised the income test for non-farm income. We believe that this will help. We have had evidence of hard cases. One example is of a farmer who had fallen ill and whose wife had gone out to work to support the family. In such a case the farm income of the husband and wife might be very small compared with the non-farm income. I have had specific cases raised in my own constituency. We believe that this increase will be of genuine help to people in difficult and sometimes tragic circumstances.

Mr. Maclennan: I want to correct any impression that I did not welcome the increase. I was asking who would benefit and drawing attention to the fact that it seemed to allow for inflation, whereas the grants remain static for a period of three years.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: I shall deal with inflation later. I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that this increase will give considerable help to those able to use it.
Several hon. Members have been worried lest an effect of the scheme is merely to make big farms bigger. I have read this point of view and it has been expressed by various commentators in the agricultural Press and elsewhere. But one of the encouraging features of the scheme so far has been the number of amalgamations between non-viable units. I quote the figures for Scotland, but those for the rest of the country are similar, and in Scotland nearly half the


approvals have involved amalgamations of two uncommercial units. What is particularly significant in Scotland is that in crofting areas the figure is higher still. This encouraging trend shows throughout the rest of the country.
As to the take-up of the Scheme, it is difficult to make comparisons between what has been happening under the Scheme and what happened before, because it is only sensible to compare it with the period before the Scheme came in. We can make such comparison, but it may not be statistically correct because some people may have been anticipating the Scheme. In the two or three years before the Scheme in Scotland amalgamations appeared to be taking place at something like 200 a year. Since the Scheme, this has gone up to about 450 amalgamations a year, and the same is true of other parts of the country. While we cannot be absolutely accurate, it appears that the Scheme has had the effect of bringing about amalgamations.
Speaking for my own part of Scotland, the North-East, an area with a high number of small farms, probably similar to parts of Wales, the rate of take-up there was far in excess of what my Department anticipated. There is regional variation and perhaps the rate has not been so fast in other areas. There can be no doubt but that the Scheme has had the effect of speeding up amalgamations.
What hopes do we have for the Scheme? A number of fairly basic criticisms have been voiced about it. The hon. Member for Cardigan said that all the Government seemed to be doing was making a Scheme that was not entirely effective, and only marginally better, rather than producing a new one. I do not accept that as a fair criticism. A new Scheme would require new legislation. We have to make the best of the Scheme in our hands, provided by an Act of Parliament passed by the previous Government. There have been other, deeper matters raised tonight which we will take up in the review.
I was asked: What are we aiming at as the typical commercial unit? I do not think that there is any secrecy about this or about the number of standard man-days that we use for a commercial

unit. The unit we want is one that would provide an adequate living for the occupier, adequate scope for the use of modern methods and labour-saving machinery and which would generally enable him to employ two men including himself. That is the general aim in bringing forward this Scheme for amalgamations. The detailed criteria must be left to the review and in that review we will certainly take account of what has been said tonight.
What we come back to are the debates we had in Committee. These centred around whether we want to see, in such a Scheme, amalgamations being positively encouraged by the Government and which change the structure of agriculture, or whether on the other hand there should be merely an oiling of the wheels of the amalgamation process taking place in any case. I know that some hon. Members on both sides believe that such a Scheme should be no more than an encouragement of the process already taking place. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman has not looked back to this in Committee, because it may have been a view I expressed at the time, namely that if we provide a Scheme which is too fast at one end of the scale we may produce an artificial structure too quickly which may not be in keeping with the commercial and economic future that will face agriculture. Equally, on the other hand, we do not want a Scheme which is too slow and does not help to meet the problems which we have to face. Obviously, this is a question which we shall look at during the course of the review.

Mr. Elystan Morgan: The hon. Gentleman well appreciates, I believe, that five-sixths of the farms in my constituency are below the limit at which, he maintains, the Government are aiming. Does he appreciate that if that process took place, three-quarters of my constituency socially-speaking would be little more than a desert?

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his view of what the effect would be but he demonstrates, I think, that if a scheme went forward too fast, it could have deep repercussions on a locality and on society within that area. The hon. Gentleman has underlined the point which I was making.
The one criticism which we have had—and I give the assurance that this will be borne in mind in the review—is of the apparent slowness of administration between application and the making of payment. I accept the criticism. I would merely say that it is not necessarily a criticism of those who have had to administer the Scheme.
I speak from experience in my constituency in saying that one of the greatest difficulties is the legal stages which have to be followed when an amalgamation takes place. The criticisms that we receive are not so much from the point of view of amalgamators but rather concern the outgoer's payment. In cases which I have handled, hardship has resulted when, in prospect of an outgoer's payment, somebody has left his farm, invested his savings in a house and then has had to wait perhaps two years before either receiving a lump sum or the first instalment of an annuity. I know that this has caused considerable embarrassment and financial difficulty.
In all the cases which I have raised, there has been no fault by those administering the Scheme but the amalgamator has met problems in legal procedures or otherwise in carrying forward his half of the Scheme before the money could be paid out. I give the assurance that this factor will loom very high in the review which takes place, because if the Scheme is to be effective it must work quickly and its effects must work through to those who hope to benefit from it.
We hope that the review—which will be a departmental review and will take place within the Agricultural Departments—will take something like three months or, perhaps, longer. We shall, of course, consult the interests involved, the National Farmers' Unions, and we shall also take into account the views of two university departments of agricultural economics which have studied the working of the Schemes. We want the review to be thorough. We want to use all the work which has been done, in addition to our own experience of the Schemes, before we bring our conclusions to the House in due course.
The Schemes which we are discussing certainly have their defects, but I think

that everyone in the House tonight is in agreement with the general aims. Certainly, the proposals before the House tonight will help the existing Schemes within their limitations. I hope that they will encourage those whom amalgamation and outgoing payments will help to take advantage of what the Schemes have to offer. As to the future, we take the criticisms which have been made and I assure the House that we shall take them fully into account in the review.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Farm Structure (Payments to Out-goers) Scheme, 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 1st December, be approved.

Resolved,
That the Farm Amalgamations and Boundary Adjustments Scheme, 1970, a draft of which was laid before this House on 1st December, be approved.—[Mr. Stodart.]

HOMELESS FAMILIES (LONDON)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Eyre.]

9.10 p.m.

Mrs. Lena Jeger: Tonight I invite the attention of the House to the position of homeless families in London, and I want to start by making it quite clear that my main interest and concern is with the cruel and increasing problems with which the homeless families are being faced at the heart of our great capital city.
I must begin by trying to get from the Minister some clarification of the confusion which seems to have surrounded what has become known as the Greve Report. In April, 1969, the then Minister commissioned, as I understand it, a study of this very severe and difficult problem by a team headed by Professor Greve and Professor Cullingworth. I understand also that the draft of that report was submitted last January and that the final report was published in June.
Therefore I asked the Secretary of State for Social Services in November
when he received the report of the study of homelessness in Greater London commissioned in April, 1969, by his predecessor; what steps


he is taking to make public the findings of the research team under the leadership of Professor Greve.
To my immense surprise the right hon. Gentleman answered:
I have not yet received this report."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th November, 1970; Vol 807, c. 68.]
If he had not received the report, obviously he could not have read it; if he had not read it, that must mean that no very urgent consultations had been going on in the Department about the material which was contained in that report. I think it is an absolute disgrace that a report dealing with such an urgent human problem should be kicking around the Ministry for six months.
I was even more surprised when I read in The Guardian on 3rd December a letter from Professor Greve saying:
I was puzzled to learn from Sir Keith Joseph's reply to a Parliamentary question that he is still awaiting the report on homelessness in Greater London. There must be some mistake. The research team delivered its final report to the Department of Health and Social Security by the beginning of June.… The title page says Homelessness in Greater London—Report of Study ' and the research team certainly did not regard it as a draft.
He goes on:
The revision on which we are now working is not a 'final version' of the report—that has already been submitted. Instead, we aim to produce a book based closely on the June report, but not identical in content.
Several hon. Members have asked Questions, the Answers to which have confused the issue even more. I shall not weary the House with recitations, but there are certain questions which have to be asked. For instance, can copies of this report, of what I have to call the "June report", be made available to local authorities? Local authorities have got to deal on their doorsteps with this problem. Is there any information in this report which will give them some guidelines for their future planning and for their future financial arrangements? Is it to be kept a secret from them, even though many of them contributed usefully and helpfully to the work of the research team?

Mr. Ronald Brown: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is a suspicion that the report she calls the "June report" was referred to the various local government associations in London, and that there is a suspicion

that it was even altered by those people, they having some views on it? I think the Minister ought to answer and say that the "June report" was referred to the local government associations, and say whether they were permitted to make amendments to it.

Mrs. Jeger: I thank my hon. Friend who has great knowledge of these matters. I am not, however, so much concerned with whether it went to the associations. What I want to know is whether it went to individual boroughs, and I hope that, whether it did or not, it may soon be made available. What about the Greater London Council and the housing associations which are trying to help in this difficult matter? Will it be possible for the Community Relations Commission to study the report from the point of view of the problems of homeless people from overseas? Will the Minister place any restrictions on the research team's publishing part of the report in the form of articles, or talking on the communication media about its discoveries?
It is extraordinary that in answer to questions the Minister should tell the House that his Ministry has been financing, out of public funds, a project to enable two professors to write a book That is a strange use of public money and is not the way in which these matters are usually dealt with, especially since it was understood, when the original announcement was made in the House, that the Minister was setting up this project because he urgently required information on which to take action.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) did not set up this academic exercise so that one more book could be added to the spate of literature on our housing problems. I must press the Minister to tell us what is going on. It is a much more important question than asking when a draft report becomes a report, or when a book is to be published; it is a question of the action that the Government are going to take to deal with the facts disclosed by the report. We want to know, tonight, what is happening about the growing number of homeless families in London. It bodes ill for those people when one considers the incompetent muddle that surrounded even the passing of the report from the Ministry to Ministry. We have to ask ourselves how


any of the Ministers concerned will be able to deal with the reality of the problem if they cannot cope more efficiently with pieces of paper about it.
Much of the argument has concerned the difficult of definition. Nobody knows how many homeless families there are. That is one reason why I hoped to hear something about the definition of homeless families. When I am privileged to read the report I may find some answers in it.
When one of my hon. Friends asked a Question in the House on 11th December about the number of homeless families in the United Kingdom the Minister replied:
My information relates to families in temporary accommodation maintained by local authorities. Reports from authorities in England and Wales … give a total of 4,680 families then in temporary accommodation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th December, 1969; Vol. 808, c. 205.]
That does not answer the question which is: how many homeless families are there? It does not ask what accommodation is available. That answer is about as helpful, in answer to a question asking how many people have chest complaints, as saying that there are 50, because the local hospital has only 50 chest beds. The way in which the figures are produced means that a serious underestimate is made of the number of homeless, and there there is a gap in our knowledge of homelessness. We are told only the number of places in which homeless people can be put; we are not told how many are turned away.
We know that different authorities have different definitions and that in some areas only families with small children are counted, and elderly couples are turned away. We know that thousands of people are sleeping rough, putting up with temporary accommodation in hostels. The last survey estimated that every night about 11,000 in London were without homes of their own, sleeping either rough or in hostels.
Of course, the figures give no idea of the number of people who are living in absolutely intolerable conditions. I always think that if we took homelessness to mean living in uncertainty without one's own front door, not knowing how long one would be able to stay in a

place, not being able to grow any roots, not enjoying the basic amenities, we would probably find that the figure was nearer one million. I do not think that I am exaggerating.
But if we take the first official definition, we find that there are about 7,600 families in the officially classified homeless list, which is probably already out of date. I do not know whether the Minister will have another report prepared, but my impression is that the figures are still rising. So this Christmas, there will be at least 2,300 families actually in welfare accommodation and no one is sure how many who would like to be in are outside.
There are many families who would be homeless tonight if our public health inspectors worked to rule in the boroughs that some of us represent. Hundreds of families are living in over-crowded and sub-standard conditions and would be homeless but for a sympathetic blind eye now and again being turned in their direction.
The evidence seems to me that the problem is getting worse in London. I have read accounts in the Press—I have to rely on the Press for my information—that some people say that it has trebled in ten years. Other reports say that it has doubled, and of course the difficulty in getting the right answer, especially to those of us who are not privy to the report, is that we know that it varies very much from borough to borough.
If this question is getting worse, we must ask why it is. One of the main reasons is that, in all the greater London boroughs, the stock of privately rented accommodation is dropping. In Inner London, between 1961 and 1966, it dropped by about 15 per cent. But the interesting thing is that in all those boroughs the supply of furnished accommodation went up.
This is part of the heart of the problem. I am sure that the Minister would not want to make party capital out of this. I will give him a point in advance: several of us tried to persuade the previous Minister to include furnished accommodation in the Rent Act, because we foresaw—I have been the chairman of a borough housing committee, as have several other hon. Members, and we


know about these things—that as soon as the restrictions on unfurnished accommodation became more stringent than on furnished accommodation, landlords will put in the table and a chair. This is what has happened.
In one case in my constituency, landlords have collected public money for improvement grants and have been enabled to raise the rents because the facilities were improved. That is fair enough, but as each family move out of those publicly improved flats, a couple of pieces of furniture go in, and the rent rockets immediately.
This is having a very distressing and serious effect sociologically. We are finding in Inner London an ebbing away of family life, that, in order to pay these rents in Inner London, three or four girls live together and there are shared households and single working people.
I appreciate that they must live somewhere and I am certainly not casting doubt on my concern for this group of people. It means, however, that many families cannot live in Central London on one wage packet. This is certainly so in many of the constituencies that we represent.
The result is that one gets a completely distorted picture of the position. Many households are shared among single people who do not grow deep roots in the places where they live and who take up accommodation which was traditionally that of working people who needed to live in Central London to be near their work.
Many of these people are homeless because of what is euphemistically described as "redevolpment". Many hon. Members will be aware of cases where private developers have bought up rows of traditional working-class houses, have done them up—not always very well—and sold them. The local people are completely outbid in this market situation. Why are these companies going in for this sort of development? The answer is simple. It is profitable. They are certainly not doing it because their hearts are aching about the condition of old houses in the middle of London.
Another problem which will increase is that of rising rents causing increasing difficulties for many people. Sometimes families are tempted to take on property

which they cannot afford, just for the sake of having somewhere to live. They get into difficulties and, in my experience, many of the present homeless families came from the furnished sector. It is this sector where we must look for the earliest and most direct improvement.
I was interested to read a Report—this was one Report which I was able to get—about London's housing needs up to 1974. It was called Report No. 3 of the Standing Working Party on London's Housing, a high-powered committee which worked hard on this difficult problem. It said:
The Report confirms dramatically the view that there is an imperative continuing need to take every possible means to relieve the clament housing needs of London as a whole
It went on:
It is clear that the relative position of inner London has worsened in comparison with that of outer London and that, on present trends, the disparity will be still more marked in 1974, when inner London is likely to have a deficit of over 100,000 dwellings.
To that figure must be added an estimated 150,000 dwellings which are either unfit or unlikely to be improved, making a total deficit of about one-quarter of a million. These are terrifying figures because if we are now watching the number of homeless families rise, we cannot but conclude that the trend will be upwards.
This working party estimated that to cope with the quite modest projected needs, we should require in the public sector about 28,000 new units a year. As far as I can discover, the London building programme is stuck at about 21,000, and many boroughs are worried about whether, under the new subsidy arrangements, they may have to cut back further. Certainly we shall need a fantastic increase to jump from 21,000 to the 28,000 which this working party thought was necessary.
Exactly who are we talking about when we refer to homeless families? Unfortunately, the phrase "homeless family" has become a sociological label. It gets stuck to people and all it does is help to put them in a row of statistics. Sometimes the label becomes so large that it hides their faces.
I recall when it was said that most people who could not provide homes for themselves must have something wrong


with them or be a lot of feckless lay-abouts. Some time ago the then L.C.C. conducted a survey. It showed that the main characteristic of the homeless family was that it was just a family without a roof over its head. It showed that the majority of the homeless were decent, employed people with all sorts of difficulties, the main one being that they had nowhere to live. Another characteristic was that they earned rather less than average wages. Last year just over half the fathers in these families were earning under £20 a week. Goodness knows, that is little enough to provide housing in the jungle of Central London these days.
Sometimes, the family loses its home, even though it is not in arrears with the rent, because the owner falls down on his mortgage repayments. There have been several such cases in which, through absolutely no fault of their own, people have lost their homes. Some leave when they have no legal necessity to do so; because there is so much harassment and unpleasantness, they would rather just go than fight it out. One difficulty is that the law is always on the side of the landlord. We need urgent action to ensure that tenants know their rights, and not only know them but are supported in getting them. It is not enough just to tell a person that he cannot be thrown out.
It is estimated that about 7 per cent. of homelessness in London nowadays is happening to families because of their attempts to use the legal provisions which are meant to protect them. After they have been to the rent tribunal, or to see the rent officer, the harassment and the difficulties start. So it would be quite irresponsible—I am sure that no hon. Member would suggest it—to follow the line that homelessness is the result of some aberration, some sort of character defect.
Some of these families need a great deal of welfare and social help. But often those needs arise because of the insecurity of their housing; they are not the cause of the difficulty, but the result. We need to be more tolerant about these things because many well-off and well-housed people can get away with all sorts of inadequate habits and with less than conventional behaviour—they can drink

too much, or have noisy children—without being labelled welfare cases or problem families. But if a family loses its home, all these factors attract attention, and it is too easily assumed, almost automatically assumed, that they have personal and social problems other than housing.
I shall be interested to know, if we are ever to hear anything about Professor Greve's study, whether he confirms the thesis which the L.C.C. study established some years ago.
I ask again, who are these people? They are people who cannot find a secure home at rents which can be paid out of average and below-average wages. Goodness knows what they are supposed to do as rents go even higher. Another characteristic is that they have children. Sometimes there are other problems—illness, recent arrival in this country and so on—but the two basic factors are having children and earning less than the average wage.
It is what happens to the children that worries me most. Inner London has the highest admission rate in the country for the taking of children into care. I know that there are all sorts of reasons for that, but what worries me is that, between 1965 and 1969, the total number of children taken into care was practically constant, whereas the number admitted due to the homelessness of their parents nearly doubled. So this is not a question of parental neglect, delinquency or any of that group of causes which can lead to children being taken into care.
I emphasise again that the number of children who had to be parted from their parents and go into residential accommodation because of homelessness doubled between 1965 and 1969. I regard that as a shocking indictment of the present state of affairs. What is more, half of those children had to stay away from their parents for more than a year, and some for much longer.
What are we building up in personal strains and psychological difficulties within those families?

Mr. Ronald Brown: Is my hon. Friend aware that the London Borough of Hackney, with its Tory majority, attempted last year to reduce the pocket money of such children by 6d. a week, to save money?

Mrs. Jeger: There are mean attempts made to save money in that sort of way. At the same time, according to the last figure which I was able to obtain, the average cost of keeping a child in care was £8 6s. a week. I am sure that it is higher in London, and now, with the rate at which inflation is going and the cost of living is rising, it will become higher still. This is what makes me so angry about the way housing finance is dealt with by Ministers, of either party. They go on about the money side of it, but no one seems to take into account the amount of money needed to keep hundreds of children in care at over £8 a week each. I take the example of just one family with four children in care. What has happened to our economics, if not to our goodheartedness, if we will spend £30 a week to keep four children away from their parents? I never understand why we cannot spend the £30 on housing them. We could house more than one family for £30 a week.
There is a serious effect on the family caused by the break-up and distress inevitable in these circumstances, often leading to permanent defects and psychological trauma which makes it a most sensitive and urgent problem.

Mr. James Allason: In her figures, has the hon. Lady the proportion of children who went into care because of the inadequacy of the parents? She will realise that there are many cases in which it is necessary for the protection of the children that they be taken into care. In the case of homelessness, will it not often be possible for the children to stay with the mother?

Mrs. Jeger: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I took my figures from the Home Office Report, which attaches labels, so to speak, to the various categories. There is a category marked, "Taken into care because family homeless". There are other categories, "Parents incompetent", "Mother ill", and so on. I have used the Department's own nomenclature, and for the country as a whole, 2,192 children are reported by the Home Office as in care for homelessness. It would hardly be fair of me to ask the Home Office whether it really meant that. I am sure that these children are not taken into care if it can be avoided. Every child officer I know tries

to avoid it, and, if it be possible for the children to stay with their mother, the children's officer is only too glad to arrange it.
I come to the administrative side. This whole sad problem does not belong with the Department of Health and Social Security. I am glad that a Minister from the Department of the Environment—as we have to call it now—is here to answer the debate tonight. This is where the problem belongs. If these people have difficulties of health and welfare, so have the well-housed people. Let them be looked after, as are other citizens, through the social services.
The history is interesting. Responsibility for homeless families went first, under the National Assistance Act, to the local authorities. I well remember that when this arrangement was made it was meant to cover sudden distress, sudden homelessness due, perhaps, to fire or flood of some others such immediate emergency. The provisions of that Act were never meant to cope with an in-built housing problem. That is why the whole thing has gone wrong. Homelessness is a built-in permanent aspect of London life: it is not a welfare problem.
It was a great pity—and, again, I give the Government a point here—that the previous Government when reorganising local authority social services did not take the opportunity to transfer the problem of homeless families from the welfare department to the housing department. The result is confusion between work at local and at Ministerial level. The health and social security side is finally responsible, but it is the housing Minister who has to build the houses which are what these people need.
I am strengthened in my view because this was a recommendation in the Seebohm Report, and that is why I was the more unhappy that that recommendation was not adopted. It is worth recalling that the Report stated:
The full range of housing responsibilities should be placed upon housing departments. To relieve them of responsibility for dependent or unreliable tenants would discourage them from looking at the housing needs of their area as a whole and create or reinforce degrading stigmas and social distinctions. We recommend that housing departments should, as a few already do, asume responsibility for providing accommodation for homeless families.


I know that it is difficult to talk about changing these arrangements so soon after local authorities have had to try to absorb the changes brought about by recent legislation, but the point should be looked at again.
Apart from the rather technical points in the report, what Government plans are there for helping local authorities to deal with this problem? In the capital city of our rich and talented country we can no longer accept our inability to put roofs over the heads of these people. No strange and rare genius is needed—no undiscovered processes of science. It is a problem of priorities, or social values, of public concern and of Government action.
Here, again, it is only fair to be asked what action we would take. First, I would transfer to the housing departments overall responsibility. We need massive capital investment in inner London. It is no use expecting boroughs, even with existing Government help, to deal with this problem, especially as some boroughs have problems very much worse than others. We must do what was promised in the Labour Party election address—bring furnished accommodation into equal control with unfurnished accommodation. I should like to see a big cut-back in so-called private redevelopment, because that does not contribute at all to the housing needs of the people with the most urgent problems. That sort of redevelopment merely provides profit for those who choose to invest in that way.
Lastly, I would severely cut back on office building in London. I am sad to see that an increase is to be allowed. As the Member of Parliament who is said to be the Member for Centre Point, I believe that this outrageous obscenity in my constituency is a reproach to anyone who has anything to do with it.
We have heard a lot of talk this week about inflation and the need for more productivity to combat inflation. I should like to know what the productivity norm is of the speculators who erected that hideous block and who can sit back and look at it—I am not sure that they even bother to look at it; they just wait while it becomes worth more and more money the longer it remains empty. This is an

outrage when we are thinking in terms of the need for land, sites and building in the middle of our cities. I mention this example because it is one of the uglier ones.

Mr. Ronald Brown: As my hon. Friend and I have adjoining constituencies, she will no doubt be aware that she can pick up 50,000 ft. super of empty office space any time she likes in my constituency.

Mrs. Jeger: I hope that the Minister responsible will make that fact known. It is clear from the Press that there seems to be no more profitable investment at the moment than an empty office. I wonder what that does to the nation's productivity and what part it plays in our fight against inflation.

Mr. Brown: The Barbican is coming along.

Mrs. Jeger: It is coming along nicely. I believe that there would be public support for speedy and imaginative action. It will take a lot of money, but it will not be any more expensive in the end than trying to deal with all the casualties that we are creating by the present policy.
For these reasons I hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that this intractable problem—I do not pretend that anyone seems to have found the answer to it yet—will receive the close and urgent attention that it merits.

9.47 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: The speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger) was very sincerely motivated. It may be a record that present in the Chamber tonight are all three Members for the borough of Camden. There are certainly political divisions between us, but at least there is no question but that we are all extremely interested in the problem of the homeless in inner London.
The major problem which has faced anyone who has had anything to do with any form of public service in London since the war is that as fast as an old derelict or decaying site is developed the more difficult it is to rehouse people, because the same number of people as were displaced cannot be got back into the cleared site.
Further, in the broader sense the risk is run of destroying communities. In the


general context of providing a roof over people's heads that is perhaps less important, but I am not certain that any of us would like to see throughout London vast gleaming, new, massive blocks of flats in which it was difficult for people to develop any feeling of security or of belonging to a community.
The hon. Lady mentioned the numbers of children in care in Inner London. This problem is aggravated by the fact that the Inner London boroughs have within their boundaries the major railway termini. The borough of Camden has within its boundaries King's Cross, St. Pancras and Euston. It is a fact of life that homeless families, whether or not they have children, who come to London seeking their fortunes, seeking different and better lives, land up at one of those railway stations and after a very short period qualify to be rehoused by the local authority's welfare department. They get temporary accommodation and then qualify for permanent accommodation. This difficulty is not experienced by Outer London boroughs because they do not have the main railway stations.
The hon. Lady said that one reason for the rise in the number of homeless families was that many of them could not afford high rents on their low incomes. There is a substantial element of truth in this, but two factors need to be examined. A substantial number of local authorities offer good rent rebates. The borough of Camden under its progressive Conservative council is pioneering. It has decided that nobody shall spend more than one-quarter of his income on rates and rent combined.
There is an urgent need for the legislation which was promised by the Secretary of State to provide for rent rebates in the private sector. The Milner Holland Report showed conclusively that incomes in the private sector are lower than they are in the sector covered by local authority housing, and that should never be forgotten.
The new family income supplements will be a substantial help to some families. Since 1963, under the Children and Young Persons Act, which was introduced by a distinguished Minister, Henry Brooke, local authorities are empowered to spend substantial sums of money on keeping families together, to save them

from becoming homeless and the children going into care. I wish that more local authorities would do as much as Camden has done under both parties since it became a children's authority. It is far better to spend money on keeping families together than on keeping children in care.
No one will deny that there is not a short-term solution. What is the longterm solution? The G.L.C.'s idea of Thamesmead, started by one party and continued by another, is a step in the right direction. It may be that London needs a new town. It is no good winkling out the odd 5 acres in Harrow, 5 acres in Croydon; we need to look for a wider solution.
I was sorry to hear the hon. Lady make one or two partisan references in a speech which otherwise commended itself to both sides of the House. She was critical of private development. To condemn private development merely because it is for profit shows a closed mind. After all, it is out of the taxation of those profits that the country is run—not on the losses of some of the nationalised industries. To talk about private development not being allowed to continue is just as much a sign of a closed mind as to say that there should be only municipal development. The key is mixed development, and there was a belated conversion to this view by the last Labour Chairman of the Housing Committee of the Greater London Council.
The hon. Lady the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South mentioned Centre Point. It is in her constituency. It was in my borough when I was leader of the council. I should be ruled out of order or would be straying close to the bounds of order if I were to say that the sooner full rates are levied on this sort of property the better, so I will not run the risk of doing so.
As the hon. Lady rightly said, we are not dealing with statistics. We are not apportioning blame or trying to seek credit for any ideas we put forward. We must constantly realise that we are dealing with human beings. It would have been much easier had both parties gone the whole hog on the Seebohm Report and put all the responsibility on the boroughs in inner London for the full range of services instead of taking responsibility for some of the health services from the boroughs and splitting the functions of


the housing department. This was not necessarily a good thing.
It is fortunate that the business of the House concluded slightly more speedily than was anticipated. The problems of inner London are perhaps not realised to the extent that they should be. It is true that they are shared in large measure by two or three other major cities, but public attention focuses on inner London. I desperately hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will be able to set out some guidelines to what we may look for in Greater London in the next four years.

9.58 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Paul Channon): I hope that the House will forgive me if I speak now. I shall try to give way to hon. Members if I have time. Other hon. Members may have the opportunity of speaking later. However, the hon. Lady the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Lena Jeger) spoke for 35 minutes and I think I am entitled to a little time to reply.

Mrs. Jeger: May I in explanation point out that during the debate on the Bill earlier some hon. Members spoke for even longer, otherwise we should have had much more time for this important debate.

Mr. Channon: I agree. We have waited some time for this debate which is important to hon. Members on both sides of the House. It was only right that the hon. Lady should have raised this very important subject, and I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg) had the opportunity to intervene.
I shall have some things to say which may be controversial, but I hone that I can begin by being wholly non-controversial. The problem of homelessness is by far the most distressing aspect of the housing problem wherever it occurs. Although we may disagree about the methods needed to cure homelessness, or alleviate it—because it is a very difficult problem to cure—hon. Members on both sides of the House are rightly concerned to ensure that everything possible is done to relieve the distress and hardship suffered by families who have lost their homes.
It is appropriate that the hon. Lady the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South should have raised this subject just before Christmas, because in a way the sympathy which we all feel for homeless families is perhaps heightened at this time. But this is not a problem which is over after Christmas. It is with us all the year round, and it is not sufficient for us to remember it at only particular times of the year. Apart from the homeless families in London, thousands of other families in the conurbations—and I entirely accept what the hon. Lady said—are living in completely inadequate and sub-standard housing.

It being Ten o'clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Weatherill.]

Mr. Channon: I entirely accept what the hon. Lady said about the ghastly conditions of housing in London. Hon. Members are rightly concerned that the problem should continue to be aired, and I am sure that it will continue to be aired while such conditions exist. This is an appalling problem and no one would deny it. It is an appalling problem for any incoming Government to face. I accept the figures she gave of 100,000 crude shortage and 150,000 inadequate houses.

Mr. Arthur Latham: The hon. Gentleman says that he is being non-controversial. I have listened carefully to him and I do not want to let pass his reference to homelessness being the worst aspect of the housing problem. Before he leaves that point, I invite him to answer my hon. Friend's question about the definition of homelessness. I can take him to many places which could technically be called "homes" in my constituency, but whose occupants would be better off without such roofs over their heads. I ask him whether he does not agree that there is a twin problem—that of not merely providing additional accommodation but of launching a concerted attack on some of the Rachman-type landlords who are beginning to break cover in the London area.

Mr. Channon: I entirely accept that the present definition of homelessness is unsatisfactory. As the hon. Gentleman knows, on numerous occasions during the General Election campaign, my right hon. Friend said that he thought the present definition was unsatisfactory. It is difficult to find a better definition but it is a matter we shall have to go on examining. When I said that homelessness is the worst aspect of the housing problem, I meant it in the wider aspects, which of course include the problem to which the hon. Gentleman has just referred.
I hope I shall continue to be non-controversial, at least for a few more minutes. I must first take the opportunity to set out the facts about the Greve Report on homelessness in London. I say to the House, and I shall substantiate it, that there has been a scurrilous and irresponsible campaign by those who should know better, and by some who did know better, about the alleged suppression of the report. I will give the facts.
The Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at Birmingham University was formally asked to undertake a study of homelessness in London, to appoint Professor Greve, of Southampton University, as Director of Research, and to form a team mainly by diverting research staff from Centre projects sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Security. For this, the Centre is to be paid at least £13,000. Professor Greve was thus a consultant to the Centre.
If this appears to be a strange arrangement, as the hon. Lady says that it is, I remind her that it was not made by me or by my right hon. Friend. She should address her comment to the right hon. Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) who made the arrangement. Under the terms of the agreement made by the right hon. Gentleman when he was Secretary of State, it is up to the Centre to publish. The Government have neither the right nor the power to publish. We are bound by the terms of the agreement to let the Centre publish. I have the agreement here if any hon. Member wishes to refute what I am saying. The agreement was made by the last Government for reasons which no doubt at the time seemed sound to them.
The report was asked for by October, 1969, but for various reasons for which I cannot be blamed, it could not be ready by then. The date for the first and final draft was first expected to be the end of February, with the object of securing publication of the report by the end of June, 1970. In fact, the draft of the report was not received until June, 1970.
The research staff agreed—and I emphasise that it is the research staff's report under the agreement—that the report should be sent in strict confidence—because it is for the staff to publish—to the Departments concerned with the problem, the Greater London Council and the London Boroughs Association for comment. The authors—and here I take up the point made by the hon. Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury (Mr. Ronald Brown)—would be completely free to take account of any comments made, or utterly to ignore them, and I must emphasise that in August of this year some eleven pages of comments were sent to Professor Greve. For example, in the original draft provided by Professor Greve he was unable to use the up-to-date figures in the recent report of the Standing Working Party on London Housing, to which the hon. Lady referred, and therefore a great many of his figures were out of date.
I understand that a complete revision of the document sent in June will be ready by mid-January. I also understand that the delay in providing a revised document is due to lack of time, so I am told. Professor Greve and his colleagues are presumably taking account of these revised figures in preparing their amended version of the report and of the book which, I understand, is to be published in the new year. My right hon. Friend has asked Professor Greve and Professor Cullingworth to publish as quickly as possible, and I hope that the revised version will come to us next month and be published shortly after.

Mrs. Jeger: I should like the hon. Gentleman to make this totally clear. Are we not talking about two things? Is there not a report which is within the Ministry on the one hand and, on the other hand, a book to be published? Is he saying that the agreement with the Centre for Urban Studies prevents the report that was delivered in June from being passed down to local authorities,


or published in any way, or even put in the Library of the House of Commons?

Mr. Channon: The agreement is perfectly clear: it is for the research team, the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, to publish the report. If the hon. Lady wishes to see a copy, she should ask Professor Cullingworth or Professor Greve, for it is entirely for them to publish. We are only too anxious for the report to be published at the earliest possible date.
It is clear that there has been no intention whatever on the part of the Government to try to suppress this report. Indeed, we are as anxious as anybody to have up-to-date facts to help us in taking action. I therefore regret very much that, without adequately checking their facts, some observers are alleging that the Government are suppressing this report.
It is particularly sad, to me at any rate, that the Director of Shelter, which has done so much to help to alleviate housing misery, and whose organisation has done a job which is rightly praised both inside and outside the House, in his Christmas magazine and in other articles should have repeated allegations which are both irresponsible and completely and utterly untrue. I take this opportunity tonight from this Box to refute those allegations.

Mr. Reginald Freeson: I do not in any way wish to question what the hon. Gentleman is now saying, because, like many others, I have been awaiting a clear explanation of exactly what has transpired. It would be useful, and I do not say this in any unpleasant manner, if the hon. Gentleman made the point to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services that a full explanation along these lines would have been helpful at a much earlier date, for it would have been easier for many of us to understand what was going on. Some of our own comments on the problem, made outside the Chamber, might have been less ironic.

Mr. Channon: The hon. Gentleman will not expect me to comment on that suggestion, but I am grateful to him for the tone in which he is taking what I am saying. I sincerely assure him that there is nothing in my very short period in Government which has annoyed me more than to be attacked for something in which there is not a single grain of truth.

Governments of all kinds are liable to be attacked for their housing policies. We may be right or wrong, and I welcome honest attacks and honest controversy about matters of great public importance. The hon. Lady has given us an example of an important debate on a topic of great public importance. What wounds me is when attacks are made which have no basis of truth.

Mr. Ronald Brown: Having regard to the seriousness of the issues and the leakages which have gone on, and knowing as we do that his Department is aware of what would appear to be prima facie a very serious case, is he aware that it appears to the outside person that his Department has not been aware of the importance of the subject!

Mr. Channon: I am coming to that. What is more important than who is right or wrong about the publication of this is what we are going to do about it.
That we are willing to publish the facts and to act on them is clearly illustrated by the fact that we published the report on London's housing needs up to 1974 prepared by the Standing Working Party on London Housing. If the hon. Lady looks at that document she will see that it was prepared in February, 1970. If I were to take the same line as some of those criticising us I would say that the last Government held that up because they did not want to publish it before the General Election. I do not take that line. I accept that the last Government acted in complete faith about the report and I hope that hon. Members will accept that we did likewise with this one.
As the hon. Lady points out, the problem in London's housing is utterly desperate. There is a shortage of about 100,000 in inner London with a further 150,000 unfit or unlikely to be improved by the year 1974. Within four weeks of coming into power we published this report which gives a much more up-to-date picture of the London housing situation than the figures I have seen in the draft Greve Report. We have not stood still on this. Despite the fact that we knew that the draft was likely to be substantially revised, our Departments have been preparing as far as they can for action on the recommendations in the draft report on the assumption that many would stand at the end of the day.
It would be wrong for me, although I am tempted to do so, to comment in detail on the Greve Report until I have seen the final version. It is clear that the report is not a blueprint for a quick and easy solution to the problem of homelessness. It is however a most useful contribution which the Government intend to discuss shortly with the authorities concerned, as soon as the revised version is received. We intend to have meaningful talks with all the interested parties. This deals with the point raised by the hon. Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury.
Meanwhile the Government are continuing to press local authorities to provide more and better welfare accommodation to meet the immediate needs of families.

Mr. Clinton Davis: Now that the hon. Gentleman is turning to the question of persuasion of local authorities, may I point out the situation in my constituency, with which he is no doubt familiar. There, as he well knows, the Conservatives cut the housing programme from 2,000 to 600. What representations is he making about that situation? Has he indicted that local authority as he ought to have done?

Mr. Channon: What I would like to do, if the House will allow me, is to deal in some detail with the situation of London's housing. I will not shirk the point raised by the hon. Member. We are pressing for more and better welfare accommodation to meet the immediate needs of families. We have made it clear that no financial bar will be raised to acceptable proposals for providing such accommodation. The House may like to know that last year loan sanction amounting to £244,877 was given to London boroughs to provide temporary accommodation. So far this year £312,085 has been given. I cannot do the percentages in my head but it is a substantial increase this year.
Generally, London authorities are responding well in a very difficult situation and we are continuing to give advice and to prompt them where necessary. We intend, however, to have further general discussions with the London authorities about some of the difficulties and the problems which the Greve Report has indicated.
To turn to the wider question, because homelessness is only part of the London housing problem as a whole, it is not enough simply to provide welfare accommodation on a temporary basis for homeless families. The aim must be to resettle them in permanent homes as quickly as possible. At the same time, we must do all we can to relieve the urgent needs of those living in overcrowded conditions and in unsatisfactory and substandard housing. This means that the housing drive in London must be maintained.
Again, the Government are taking action. One of the first things that we did was to publish a report. The hon. Lady will have seen the circular letter which went out with it from my right hon. Friend the then Minister, now Secretary of State, asking housing authorities to give the report serious consideration, to pursue a vigorous building programme, to bear in mind the need for the outer areas of London to help the inner areas, to make the greatest posssible use of improvement grants and to push ahead with housing advisory services to the public.
In October, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Construction met representatives of the Greater London Council and the London Boroughs Association. That meeting agreed that Outer London must help Inner London by providing for the rehousing of Londoners from the centre in outer districts, that there should be a big improvement campaign and that a high level of local authority building must be maintained.
That does not mean—I hope that no side of the House believes it to mean—that local authority building is the only way of helping. We are actively looking for ways to increase the contribution of private enterprise in London and, above all, of housing associations in London. We had an interesting debate on this in the House only a few days ago. My right hon. Friend has asked the Standing Working Party on London Housing to consider these aspects of private housing and housing associations in addition to the local authorities' own programmes.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: We are perfectly aware that there are many ideas on housing, including local authority housing, but is it not the fact that under


the previous Government many local authorities under Tory control deliberately, without regard to the totality of the problem, stood back their local housing programmes?

Mr. Clinton Davis: Like Hackney.

Mr. Bidwell: Like Ealing.

Mr. Channon: If the hon. Member wishes to introduce that note into the debate, I shall answer him in due course in my speech. I utterly repudiate what he is saying.
We are, of course, urging inner London itself to build wherever possible in its own areas and we are instituting a fresh search for surplus and other land throughout London which might be used for housing. Despite all this, Outer London must continue to help Inner London.
I entirely accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead said, that another important direction in which we can have help for London is in a vigorous new towns programme and sensible overspill arrangements. There is, however, no point in providing new towns where people do not have jobs and where they are not prepared to go. It is important that we should pursue a policy that will provide both opportunities for employment and houses outside London in overspill and new town schemes.
One of the things that disturbs me is to read occasionally in overspill schemes of numbers of empty houses. That seems to me to show that in many cases this whole situation needs radical review.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Interventions prolong speeches and I know that the Minister wants other hon. Members to speak in what was supposed to be a half-hour debate.

Mr. Gummer: Does not my hon. Friend agree that one of the most important parts of the new towns policy must be to let those who might go to new towns know where they are and where the opportunities are? Many people in my constituency would go to a new town if it were not so difficult to find out where the jobs and homes are.

Mr. Channon: I entirely agree. I believe that the provision of housing aid

centres, which, again, we shall encourage as far as possible, will make an important effect upon that. Far too little is known about these schemes. Many local authorities are enterprising in getting them known, but there are some which are not. I entirely accept that more publicity is required for new towns and overspill schemes and about where there are empty houses. Indeed, I know of boroughs which have got to work with a new town or an overspill development and a number of people have been persuaded to go to a new town and have not regretted it.
In November my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Construction wrote to each of the London boroughs emphasising the need for this high level of authority building saying that officers of the Department would be discussing their problems with the borough councils. After this. I am only too anxious to meet any London authority which wishes to discuss its problem with me, and I hope very much many of them will. Initial meetings with London boroughs are taking place at the present time.
I must point out to the hon. Member for Southall, as I said to his hon. Friend at Question Time the other day, that hon. Members on the opposite side of the House seem often to give the impression that as though by the wave of some magic wand the housing problem in London started on 19th June, 1970. It is a fact that in the last year of Labour Government, from whom we inherited the problem, after five years we had fewer houses started in London than there were in 1964.

Mr. Latham: Mr. Speaker, may I register protest at the fact that we have had one speech from one back bencher from the Government side, and that the Minister is now making a very lengthy reply, and replying to points which have not been raised in the debate, though my hon. Friend was very careful to avoid partisan points, and emphasised that fact—and the Minister complimented her on having done that? Yet he is replying to points which he said were raised at Question time on a previous occasion. I think that this is something of a farce in an Adjournment debate, that a Minister should choose to intervene when he did, and prevent other hon. Members from making contributions.

Mr. Speaker: It is an interesting point, but it is not a point of order. It is a point of argument. The hon. Member does not like what the Minister says.

Mr. Channon: He will like it a good deal less in a few moments' time I expect, but hon. Members opposite have attacked us and implied that the London housing problem started in June of this year—

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that hon. Members will not keep on intervening, because many hon. Members want to speak in this debate, if the Minister will let them.

Mr. Channon: The hon. Lady spoke for 35 minutes—

Mr. Latham: Then reply to what she said.

Mr. Channon: I know the hon. Member does not like what I am saying, but surely I am entitled, as I was trying to do, to reply to her argument about the London housing problem.

Mr. Ronald Brown: I am interested in what the Minister is saying, but he must realise that we are not suggesting or complaining that the housing problem started in June this year. We have talked about 1968 and how the situation has been exacerbated, and I hope that he will address himself to that point.

Mr. Speaker: That is a point of argument.

Mr. Channon: Yes, I will certainly try to deal with this point if I am allowed to continue with my speech. I was saying that we had inherited a situation which the previous Government had allowed to develop, and in the last year of the Labour Government, after five years in power, they started fewer houses both in London and the country as a whole than in 1964.
One other thing the Government have done is—and I am sure the hon. Lady will be pleased to hear it—is that we are spending £250,000 this year on a massive publicity campaign to inform people about the grants for improving their houses. It is particularly important in London if we are to make the best use of our housing stock and to avoid the growing problem of obsolescence in

London in the 'seventies and 'eighties. We shall have a massive campaign in London and it will certainly be launched next year. Housing associations also have a part to play here as an additional effort to the work which local authorities should undertake in the improvement schemes. [Interruption.] Peripheral it may be, but it is improvement.
The hon. Lady talked about tenants' rights and the harassment of tenants. On that very point, we had a debate in the House a short time ago. She knows that the Francis Committee is sitting, and we very much hope to receive its report very soon, and I can certainly assure her and the House that we shall study it with care.
One of the earliest things my right hon. Friend did when he took office was to increase by a quite considerable sum the amount spent on advertising to try to help tenants to know what their rights are, and no doubt hon. Members have seen the advertisements in the newspapers. We are hoping to be able to include in rent books statutory obligations that every tenant shall have his rights whether he is in a local authority dwelling or a private dwelling.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: Can the Minister say something about the increasing harassment of tenants trying to carry out their rights, especially in the operation of a fair rents policy? It would be a great help if the Minister could say something about the backing that the Government will give to the carrying out of existing laws which in some cases are upsetting landlords.

Mr. Channon: I am not sure that I understand the hon. Lady's point. The law is quite clear. The duty is on local authorities to prosecute. The Francis Committee is considering that aspect, and if there are improvements to be made we shall be only too anxious to make them. We have no wish to see any tenant harassed by his landlord. It is a serious problem in a limited number of areas.

Mr. George Cunningham: The Minister has referred on three occasions to different things which he thought were the first things that his Government did to improve the housing situation. Does he recall that one of the first things he did was to


issue, 11 days after the Election, a circular encouraging local authorities to sell council accommodation? Has he noticed that in the Borough of Islington the attempt to give effect to that policy has resulted in a disastrous situation and that the scheme has been withdrawn? Will he relate that policy to the policy of encouraging Outer London boroughs to assist inner London boroughs? How can they do so if London boroughs are selling off large parts of their council accommodation stock, as some are?

Mr. Channon: I do not accept what the hon. Member says about that. It is a very important point, and I wish that I had more time to develop it. The fallacy in the argument of many hon. Members opposite is that it is impossible to generalise; the situation varies from one part of the country to another. Because a council house is sold, it does not follow that the housing problem is made worse. The tenant in the house in almost every case is going to stay there as long as he lives, and the sale has no positive or negative effect on the problem. But this policy enables people to buy the houses in which many of them have lived for years.
On the question of the sale of council houses I should point out that the new circular, which was one of the first things—

Mrs. Jeger: On a point of order. We must asked your protection, Mr. Speaker. I had this Adjournment debate. It was nothing to do with the sale of council houses. If one hon. Member is out of order, I do not see why the Minister should use the rest of the time in this way.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady must listen to the answer.

Mr. Channon: I am only answering the question that was raised. If the hon. Lady does not like it, I cannot help it. Hon. Member complain that I am speaking for too long. I have had to deal with about 25 interventions, all but one from

hon. Members opposite. I could not have been fairer. Perhaps I should not have given way to any of the interventions. Then I would have finished earlier.

Mr. Latham: The hon. Member should read the report of the debate and take action on the points raised.

Mr. Channon: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will read it. Naturally there will be controversy in connection with what any Government do in housing. What we want to do, above all, is to have a fair rental policy in both the private and public sector, with rebates for tenants in the private sector—rebates for the poorest people. That will make a great contribution.

Mr. Freeson: The point that the hon. Gentleman is making has nothing to do with building more new homes to house the homeless; it has to do with housing the homeless. What action does he propose to take about local authorities in London which, since 1968—not June, 1970—have been drastically cutting back on their housing programmes under Conservative control? That is what London wants to know. What action will the Minister take to get Tory local authorities to increase their house-building programmes? We want no bromides; we want some action, which has been needed ever since 1968.

Mr. Channon: Needless to say, the hon. Member is sensitive about the record of the Labour Government, who broke every pledge in housing. They did not build the houses; they clamped down on mortgage plans; the number of homeless has risen—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is too much noise from the Opposition Front Bench.

The Question having been proposed at Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at half-past Ten o'clock.